1980's
Peter Von Czarnecki, (The Pancake Parlour's Creative Director) - or “Peter Von” as he was fondly referred to - was passionate about antique machinery. Over the years he had collected an amazing number of unique beautiful decorative ‘devices’. Big and small coffee grinders and cast iron doodads littered his workshop, worrying his wife (and neighbours!)
After a trip to America, Peter Von was thoroughly inspired by the glorious machines he saw in the many museums. They were quite practical in actual use, embellished with polished brass and nickel, painted in rainbow colours and built for mundane tasks.
On his return he launched into his first device ‘The Mix Machine'. This was at the same time Allen and Helen got serious about expansion. In 1982 they opened in Canberra and then Doncaster in 1985.
1985 - Doncaster, Melbourne
At the free standing restaurant in Doncaster, Peter Von created the first moving pancake race which still continues to delight patrons on the hour. By now the group were maintaining the basic Victorian elements as featured in the restaurants; solid timbers, polished brass, etched glass and exposed bricks.
Another of the ‘static’ machines was ‘The Snake Boy Mix Machine’. The bronzed cherub holding the pancake ‘mix’ tap balances on one leg. It is actually a 19th century copy of a sculpture of the infant Hercules wrestling a snake! Obviously the snake was removed! Fitted with a big cast iron pump from a well, a stack of musical instruments and cogs from the scrap yard and giant tailors’ scissors from Peter Von's Aunt Adelaide. A cast iron fry pan and a great cast iron fly wheel start it all up!
Over the years ‘The Snake Boy Mix Machine’ has survived many such guerilla raids, losing all the lovely gas ring burners, almost all the brass dome nuts, the ancient fire extinguisher and nearly the giant tailors scissors, three times! Thus the heavyweight clear plastic guards are basically to keep the public OUT.
1986 - Chadstone, Melbourne
In 1986, Allen and Helen allied with the Hoyts Cinema Corporation as they pioneered large cinema complexes within shopping centres. Chadstone Shopping Centre was the first.
Peter Von’s first device, ‘The Mix Machine’, today resides in its permanent home in Chadstone. It has an antique gramophone horn used as the funnel for the mix. A watering can is heated by an old brass and copper gas ring from an obsolete laboratory and it pours the mix into a tin dustpan to create giant pancakes.
The whole device is on grand cast iron bench legs, cobbled together with a bicycle style chain, worn out bronze lawn watering cogs and metres of copper and brass tubing. The machine is all linked by ancient plumbing fittings, marbled paint work and metal polished to perfection. Apparently some customers almost nearly believed it was all possibly real ... obviously Peter Von was on the right track!
1986 - Dandenong - Melbourne
At the same time as Chadstone the group created a deco theme in a large thirties building on the Princes Highway at Dandenong. The replica of the art deco totem of the Chrysler Building in New York is still a mystery to the occasional New Yorker partaking in pancakes.
1988 - Northland - Melbourne
Next came Northland and along with it a vast cavernous space with 15 metre high walls. Peter Von hired an enormous factory on Adelaide’s outskirts to complete this challenge.
With the aid of a giant ancient projector he enlarged the graphics of ‘The Dogs’, ‘The Granny’, ‘The Tossing Lady’ and of course the ‘Lovely! Lady’ and then hand- painted dozens of sheets of medium density fibreboard to create enormous cut-outs in sections.
The story as told by Peter Von ...
“I’d been thinking about creating an enormous airship to float up in the huge open space and did all the calculations and drawings, even sourcing some marvellous yellow fabric to cover the aluminium frame from the US. The shopping centre on advice from the Fire Department canned the whole idea as a fire risk. This was the one and only unresolved project in my time.
So I went on with the dirigible, featuring a life-size monkey in a flying suit piloting a smallish rope trimmed airship in yellow rip-stop sail cloth. This was powered by a ‘best boys’ clockwork motor and driven by an ancient riveted copper air screw. My idea was to create a ‘Hail a Pancake Airship’ which was a complete pancake cooking set-up, even incorporating a gorgeous ornate old clothes mangle in miniature ... just in case a customer would rather have a crepe!
I found a really large laundry basket at the Salvo’s op shop and a giant cast iron fry pan in the Army Disposals store. I bought a beautifully crafted 1930’s ship wheel, all brass and mahogany, by chance at a garage sale. The whole creation was mounted high up on the most elegant cast iron light pole, complete with a ‘Hail A Pancake’ scrolled sign, all in bright warm colours.
The giant key on the wind up clockwork motor slowly turned as the copper propeller spun. The monkey sported an enormously long scarf printed with Lovely! Lady motifs. Lots of customers, always men, pointed out that the propeller was turning the wrong way; I just told them it always should when it’s idling. Slowly but surely as the work progressed we lost control of the method, muddling them up, painting some in the other colours, got in each others way, the projector regularly overheated and destroyed slides, the rain got in and Reg Stevens stormed off the job after rowing with the artists hired.
I was too busy creating the accompanying Monkey Steered Dirigible and the moving murals to go with it to devote enough time to what was going on. Consequently without me the panels ended up incorrectly marked, causing gigantic headaches at the building site, especially as they had to be slap bang up against the Hoyts Cinemas common wall. We couldn’t erect any of these gigantic figures until after 11.30pm and only until to 7am. I had to be there night after night as none of the builders could make head nor tail of the dozens of 2.4 metre by 1.2 metre painted panels. Surviving this I completed the Monkey Steered Dirigible after frantically trying to make it for the scheduled Christmas opening.” Peter Von.
1989 - Highpoint, Melbourne
In 1989, The Highpoint Pancake Parlour was constructed in the former meat hall of the shopping centre. This presented a great space but was marred by massive ugly round pillars at intervals. Peter Von suggested they hard plaster and paint them in a special tan and cream marble finish. He brought in Steve Baliga from Adelaide who did a convincing job.
For Highpoint, Peter Von built what was to become a standard fitting for all Parlours, a mechanical “Tossing Race for Ladies” mural. In this instance with the use of a laser. By the time Highpoint was becoming a reality, photographic technology was advanced enough to attempt a full colour version of the now standard race, but on laminate. This is where John “Tilly” Tilbrook came along.
A genius at anything mechanical, Tilly lived in the bush outside Melbourne solving problems all over the state and he knew the pancake business having once been there as a cook! A rock musician by inclination, his unique brand of mechanical engineering fitted perfectly with Peter Von’s total lack of it. From this propitious start his professed claim “never to be stumped by anything,” was music to Peter Von’s ears.
The first challenge for the Highpoint restaurant was using an incomprehensible system, flashing beams behind the trembling poised pancake above the race winner’s fry pan in the tossing race mural. Later murals became even more sophisticated and Tilly’s association ever more valuable.
The story as told by Peter Von ...
“It seemed to me that the grand space of Highpoint needed a focal point on the end wall to catch your attention on entering the Parlour. I’d seen some giant spun metal circle things at a metal spinners factory that would make the rims of a giant wind-up watch clock. It became the prototype of a lot to come later on. Modern quartz movements simply weren’t strong enough for this clock, measuring something like a metre and a half across, so I sought an electric one before picking myself up from the floor on being told the price! Answer: Tilly!
I found a cheap second hand unit using 240 volts but didn’t notice it was actually part of a set of clocks controlled by a master. Tilly the genius, over-road all that, and after struggling to find a material rigid but light enough for the giant hand he finally settled on wafer thin aluminium from where else but a scrap yard! He creased each hand down the middle to make it rigid. The case was given to Reg Stevens to paint metallic gold. The ‘winder’ was a real problem, so I glued lumps of MDF together and had them turned into a big ball about the size of a soccer ball and then hand grooved it (a real labour of love as each groove from top to bottom had to be tapered) Trimmed with a big circle of polished brass to be soldered to a collar of brass with Reg’s gold finish on the winder. Computer cut roman numerals on the white MDF face, clear acrylic glass and big fancy brass hinge to the watch case. If I say so myself, it was a winner. With big tossing race crowd murals over the cooling areas, Highpoint Pancake Parlour was open for business.” Peter Von.