Andy Lee at work at the coffee machine in the Harding Street Convenience Store. Photo: Alison Bennett
Words: Mark Phillips
Photos: Alison Bennett
Friday, August 1, 2025
ONE of the last remaining old school family-run milk bars in the Brunswick-Coburg area will disappear when the Harding Street Convenience Store closes at the end of August.
Owners Andy and Phoebe Lee will leave the business with heavy hearts after being told by their landlord that their lease would not be renewed and the building will be sold.
The Lees have owned the store for 17 years, about half of its existence, and the news that they will be closing has generated an outpouring of emotion among their loyal customer base.
“It came as a big shock,” Phoebe said.
“We didn’t see that coming. We thought that, you know, we’ve been here for 17 years, nearly, and we would always continue doing that.”
The area once had about half a dozen milk bars, but most of them have gone out of business, victims of changing shopping habits and the gruelling hours required to run a shop from dawn to after dark, seven days a week.
The Lees’ original plan was to spend about five years behind the counter until their son, Jesse, was in primary school. It was because of Jesse, who had health complications as a toddler, that they initially took over the store so Phoebe could look after him while she worked without putting him into childcare.
A cousin recommended to her that a milk bar would allow her to effectively work from home, and they spent six months searching all over Melbourne for an appropriate site. The Harding Street store was the least bad they came across.
Top: A young Jesse helps Andy in the shop. Above: The Lees a few days after they took over the store in 2008. Photos: supplied
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Left: A young Jesse helps Andy in the shop. Right: The Lees a few days after they took over the store in 2008. Photos: supplied
Andy left his job as a croupier at Crown casino to help out in the store, and the couple served their first customers on August 1, 2008.
“We were thinking about five years when my son is older, he’s going to primary school probably, you know, that’s it, we can sell the business and move on,” Phoebe said.
“But we actually found it’s a business that we both enjoy doing. We’re really lucky that more than 90% of our customers, they are local residents. So after a few years we felt that we enjoy customers coming in like a friend.
“They know our names, and we know their names, and we will have a chat … It makes us really happy because it is like we’re seeing friends every day.”
The store first opened as a milk bar in Harding Street in the early-1990s, and had three owners before the Lees.
During their tenure, the Lees have slightly expanded the business by installing a bright red Gaggia coffee machine and key cutting, but mostly just continued it as it was with the usual staples of essentials like milk and bread, lollies and newspapers.
Jesse has grown up not knowing anything else but the store. He still sometimes helps out behind the counter when not completing a university degree in actuarial studies.
The first couple of years were tough – Phoebe says the couple did not take a holiday together for seven or eight years as they couldn’t close the shop’s doors even for a couple of weeks – but what has kept the Lees going is their customers.
“It’s like they treat us not like a business owner, they treat us like as a neighbour, as a friend,” Phoebe said.
“That’s such a nice thing. They take care of us, they care about us. So we just, you know, kind of slowly, we just keep doing it and doing it. And now we thought we could do that forever.”
The affection their neighbours hold for the Lees is apparent from the responses since word began spreading that the store was destined to close.
One woman brought in her elderly mother to say goodbye. Another handcrafted a farewell card with a long, personal message inside.
“Thankyou [sic] so much for serving the community with such grace, kindness and generosity … We don’t know what we’ll do without you + the milkbar which has been part of this community for so long,” it reads in part.
There is even talk of the neighbourhood throwing a farewell party.
“It’s really touching,” said Andy.
“The customers are really nice. There are so many things that have happened during the years and we really feel like we’re part of the neighbourhood.”
“It’s like they treat us not like a business owner, they treat us like as a neighbour, as a friend,” Phoebe says. Photo: Alison Bennett
They are sad to be closing, but one silver lining will be no more 14 hour days.
“People always think that, you know, milk bars are a business that are run down businesses, but we actually found it’s okay,” Phoebe said.
“It’s never been a big business that you can make a huge profit from it but because we don’t have any competition … and when you have so many supporting customers we found a way where we can make a living. We are not greedy. We are happy with it, you know.”
The Lees own a house in Roxburgh Park which they rent out and intend to remain in the Coburg area, where Phoebe’s elderly parents now live.
Both aged in their early to mid-50s, they face the daunting prospect of returning to the workplace as waged employees, but they will do so with fond memories of Harding Street and its community.
