Hi, it’s Adrian Bo here and today I’m on High Street, right on the corner of Wansey in Randwick to talk about and celebrate a great local institution and the local legends that built its reputation. Luigi Coluzzi, my uncle, was born in Rome in 1930 during the era of Benito Mussolini. They were harsh times in Italy, as Mussolini, also known as “Il Duce” or to translate ‘the leader’, wreaked havoc across the Italian society. Joining Hitler in World War II, young Luigi Coluzzi, however, flourished in the carnage. At the age of 12, he worked as a barista in a busy Rome cafe. He also earned a crust as a mechanic and a painter. Alongside his jobs, he trained at a local boxing gym and by the age of 16, he became the San Lorenzo amateur flyweight champion and soon after he landed the prestigious Lazio championship. Now at the age of 21, Luigi Coluzzi became the captain of a motorcycle stunt troupe and turned professional in the boxing ring. Over the next few years, he progressed in the sport, including defeating the English welterweight champion, Paul King in front of 60,000 spectators.

That was in 1955. His boxing career brought him to Sydney to fight Australian boxers, which led him to settle here in Sydney and soon he won the Australian middleweight title, defeating Billy MacDonnell. In total, his boxing stats read, 47 fights, 30 wins, 15 losses, two draws. What a great scorecard. Now, why I am recounting the tale of an Italian boxer here on High street behind me, in Randwick is because in 1957, he and his wife, Eleni, launched a coffee shop called Bar Coluzzi, originally on William Street, then in Sydney’s iconic Victoria Street Darlinghurst, which was a cafe that was very, very well known and most recently here in High Street, Randwick up the road from where I’m standing. It became a local institution in Victoria Street over the years, serving amongst its customers, Rocky Marciano, John Travolta, Luciano Pavarotti, Danny De Vito, Billy Connolly, Henry Winkler, who was the Fonz in Happy Days, as well as local legends like, “Macca” McNamara, artist Brett Whiteley, boxer Tony Mundine, ABC chairman David Hill plus many, many more. I distinctly recall sitting on the milk crates in Victoria Street, sipping on a cappuccino, in my twenties, with my Coluzzi cousins, back then. Until the 1950s, there had been very strict government controls on the importation of coffee. Sydney was very much a tea drinking city. So, when an Italian trained barista introduced well-made espresso, cappuccino and latte from the quality beans, it proved a game changer and many other Italian coffee houses sprang up across the Eastern suburbs.

The popularity of Bar Coluzzi caused large crowds of people to spill out onto the footpath, drinking their coffee alfresco. Until then, this had been illegal but a campaign to legalise it, led by supporters of Bar Coluzzi, changed the city forever. Luigi’s wife, Eleni, whose idea it was to get Luigi out of the boxing ring by opening Bar Coluzzi, also had a tough background. Born in Romania from a Greek family, World War II was a brutal time in Romania. She suffered serious injuries but she and her brother managed to escape in a boat and ended up in a Greek refugee camp for three years until they were put on an American warship, which brought them to a refugee camp in Bathurst, of all places. Luigi and Eleni went on a date to La Veniziana restaurant to celebrate one of his boxing wins and they fell for each other and the rest is history. The cafe here in Randwick, was opened as a result of Eleni’s grandson, Nicholas being born at the Sydney children’s hospital, just up the road from me here.

Eleni would walk down High Street, quite often, several times to visit mum and baby in the hospital and decided it was an ideal location for the next chapter of Bar Coluzzi. Eleni sadly passed away in 2011 and Luigi also sadly passed away in 2014 but just before that, he was still dropping in here up at High Street to entertain customers with his rendition of “O Sole Mio” and “That’s Amore”, plus throwing a few air boxing moves around, as well. What a great memory that was. Such a local legend and a great purveyor of the Italian culture here in Randwick and throughout, in fact, the entire Eastern suburbs. Now, this lockdown is certainly starting to have an impact on the housing market. However, Randwick house prices have had a fantastic run recently, in 2021 this year, the median price for a four bedroom home in Randwick is sitting at $3.1 million, which is a 12.7% uplift on last year and a whopping $750,000 uplift, since the end of 2019. The median price for five bedroom houses in Randwick has seen a huge 22% rise from last year up to $4.3 million.

The changes caused by lockdowns in our society, including working from home and homeschooling are undoubtedly key factors in this incredible market lift. Prices for apartments in Randwick are still solid. However, increases in the median price are less than half compared to houses based on last year’s prices. For those owning a four and five bedroom house here in Randwick, it looks like a great time to get a market appraisal on your property. So, by all means, please call me on: O418 278 316, so I can provide you a trusted advisor, professional, very, very experienced opinion, backed by two and a half thousand sales over a 30 year career. The Coluzzi family were fun to grow up with and are a great example of the vibrancy that European cultures have brought to the Eastern suburbs of Sydney. And I’m personally determined to celebrate our cosmopolitan history and really relive the local stories that have made this fantastic area what it is today and no lockdown can ever change that. I’m also currently selling a strata commercial medical suite in High street and that’s at 66 High Street, Strata Suite number 5D. So, keep smiling, always remember your home is worth more with Adrian Bo and stay safe.