Sydney’s oldest family-owned grocer changes hands today after 90 years

Inner-west institution Galluzzo Fruiters in Glebe has been sold, ending 90 years of ownership by four generations of one family.

Owner Damian Galluzzo believes his grocer is Sydney’s oldest. When his grandfather, Salvatore Galluzzo, opened the store at its current site at Glebe Point Road in 1934, the Great Depression was gripping Sydney. Salvatorre handed the reins to son Frank Galluzzo and his wife Melina, then their sons Damian and his brother Joe took control more than 30 years ago.

Damian and Joe both have children who work in the shop, but say they don’t want to put the burden of running it on them.

“Joe and I were getting tired, sometimes working 16 to 18 hours a day. Then our oldest brother passed away last year, and we wondered how much longer we could do this,” Damian Galluzzo says.

The business has not only survived 90 years but it has expanded as well, adding a neighbouring deli in 2014. The brothers put their success down to being focussed on quality.

“You’ve got to taste the fruit. And it is also how well you treat your customers,” Galluzzo says.

The brothers were looking for new operators who would uphold those values, and say they have found that in another set of brothers, Joshua and Daniel Flamminio, who have supplied fruit and vegetables to some of Sydney’s top chefs, including Neil Perry and Quay’s Peter Gilmore, and will keep operating the store as it is.

“You’ve got to taste the fruit. And it is also how well you treat your customers.”

Damian Galluzzo

Galluzzo marvels that despite all the changes in the world over the past 90 years, his daily work is almost exactly like his grandfather’s, especially the 2am trips to the market, though these days it is Flemington not the Paddy’s Market site where Salvatore trudged.

But there have been many changes around him. When the grocer opened in 1934, Glebe had 24 fruit shops. Today, Glebe Point Road has just two. The arrival of the shopping centre at Broadway didn’t kill the business, nor did the closure of the nearby Valhalla Cinema, which Damian Galluzzo says took more of a toll on local cafes. Galluzzo’s bugbear is parking meters, which have hurt local small businesses.

Damian and Joe are the youngest of seven siblings who grew up above the shop. They all started serving customers from about the age of 11 onwards after school, at the end of which you either studied, or joined the shop. His siblings followed pharmacy and dentistry, there’s also a barrister. Damian was accepted into mechanical engineering and had dreams of designing cars, but decided he didn’t want to move away to study and joined the shop straight out of school.

He will help the new owners for the next six months. And while there are no regrets about falling so close to chalking up a century of family ownership, he’ll soon get used to sleeping in a little later. But he will miss his weekly phone order from the shop’s oldest customer. “Norma (Hawkins) is 101, she phones me every Friday between 5-6pm.”