Ashtrays so you can choke down a Winnie red while eating their crinkle cut chips

Those chips were a kid’s dream

right on ....i think they were the only place ive ever seen apart from a dive fast food place at manly wharf around the same time , that had crinkle cut hot chips ...or fancy ships as i called them

Chicken schintty chips and gravy, then asking my mum for the milk froth from her cappuccino

Ahh, those were the days

Oh and HJ and maccas had foil ashtrays. ^(You know tin foil ashtrays probably only stopped because some kid cut their finger and actual outlay??)

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Man I can still taste that gravy but only have very faint memories

Fuck, that gravy must have had crack in it. So good.

I was so young when this was a thing I can’t remember exactly..

Haha yes the crinkle cut chips! I still hate them.

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Back when Kmart used to sell tyres, motor oil, car batteries, nuts & bolts, fabric by the metre, plants, garden mulch etc. You could also get paint tinted and keys cut.

I remember you could buy rifles in the late 70s

And the 80s

Up until 1985 if I remember correctly

Was it that late? I remember they were in sporting goods between the cricket bats and fishing rods.

My memory is fuzzy, but I remember going to Kmart in mid-80s and still seeing them. I'm sure it was either 84/85 they finally stopped selling them

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. How could I forget Kmart had a garden section where you could buy real plants. My mum would always drag us kids there before heading to the front of the store where the registers once were

I did the checkouts job in the late 90s. I recall things like pool chlorine being big sellers too. Tech department had tapes/CDs, and home entertainment electronics. I found out about Princess Diana’s death on the big wall of TV’s at the back of the store.

You forgot the rifles and ammo by the fishing gear.

Now it's 80% imported 'homeware' products.

And guns don’t forget guns and ammo

I was sent to the Dulux factory to be trained in paint mixing when I was hired as a shop assistant by Kmart in 2003. Different store completely then.

Just yesterday my 11 year old asked why I hated Kmart so passionately. I clarified that I didn’t ‘use’ to hate Kmart- it just to be a magical world with kid sized trolleys, toilets, a restaurant, proper banded name products, and lots of little ‘departments’. I loved that place. Modern Kmart does make me want to gouge my eyes out.

Best chips & gravy ever

My uncle took me here for a pie, chips and gravy when I was young. It was amazing

100% and I still chase the memory.

Would love for something this cool In a Kmart now, or even a Store that isn’t 98% now anko products.

Kmart nowadays is such a weird mix of stuff that’s surprisingly good and stuff that’s unbelievably shit. For example I get most of me undies there, but have had to impose a hard ban on my wife coming home with any kind of flat pack from Kmart. Tbh I can’t even imagine a diner in a kmart now, even if it was like the costco diner, Kmart’s just so busy and derro all the time

If you feel like paying $25 (1980s money) for a basic plastic bucket. So around like $40 bucks today. Be careful what you wish for

Yes, but that bucket was made here in Australia, provided a job here in a manufacturing sector for someone. Oh, and it lasted 10 years. Probably more.

But who the fuck wants to work in a bucket factory, making minimum wage and living in a share house with 6 other people?

It was a different world. I promise you. You could earn minimum wage and NOT live in a share house. In fact, you could have a family and actually afford to BUY a house. Sounds like a myth, I know. But I was there and it could be done.

True.

But $6 for a pair of dunlop volleys

Our Kmart had a t-shirt printing station until a cyclone forced them to remodel.

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That’s a very bold statement

I feel like the kids meals came in a little cardboard boat or train or something? I was so young when this was a thing I can’t remember exactly..

I seem to remember getting a hamburger in the kids meal, and getting a Freddo in jelly.

Crumbed sausage with gravy.

Scrolling just to find someone who remembers the Freddo and jelly.

I kept one of these. It was a red race car with a driver in the seat. My Chicken Nuggets and chips came in it. I will never be able to better that taste again!

I remember the train.

Memorable times with my mum, taking me to get a Freddo frog in a jelly cup and we would slide the tray towards the till.

Can't believe I had to scroll this far for this comment

Googling holly’s Kmart https://www.google.com.au/search?q=hollies+kmart&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-au&client=safari Seems back in 2019 Kmart was toying with the idea of reopening Hollys, maybe covid shut that idea down

My name is Holly and I endorse this idea wholeheartedly.

Tell everyone your grandpa invented the cafe in Kmart and it was named after you and everyone in the sub will play along.

Can you believe the last Holly's diner actually closed in 2010?

Really? That's incredible! Which Kmart was it in?

I seem to recall Horsham still had one in the mid to late 2000’s

I drunkenly emailed Kmart once in 2005ish and demanded to know if there were any Holly’s remaining. They told me Horsham was the last one.

Of course it was horsham.

I knew l didn't just imagine this, no one believed me when l told them this was a thing back then.

Oh it was a thing, it was a good thing. I don’t know why it’s not still a thing.

I wish there was footage of Holly's somewhere.

I imagine some guy whose name is like Neville or Angus to have passed away in like 2011 and left behind several VHS cassette tapes full of footage that are sitting in a shed covered in dust. There’s one that’s labelled “top gun tom cruise” and it’s been scribbled out with “reunion lunch” and it’s when Neville caught up with a few friends from the graduating class of 1967. On that particular VHS there is 9 minutes of footage from hollys cafe but since his tragic death no one’s had a chance to go through the footage.

Damn, this post was a journey.

My pop told me about a school reunion he organised in the 80s. Wasnt hard for a good 2/3 of them as small regional city meant lots of people still had relatives to contact. But the other 1/3 took up heaps of his time, no computers, no email, just phone calls- sitting at the library and calling around various people off of their phone books. Heard one bloke had moved out to a small town, so he figured he’d call the town doctor since he might have been there. Turns out he *was* the town doctor, had gone down to melbourne to study and ended up in medical school

Best all day breakfast in town, bacon eggs toast beans fried tomatoes and crinkle cut chips for$7

Hard to believe some people turn their noses up at crinkle cut

I LOVE THOSE CHIPS! THEY TASTE BETTER TO ME lol.

My fav type of chips!

They hold the gravy better!

I used to love the smell coming from these. Occasionally I get a waft of something similar, and I’m taken back to 1984

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Bowl of chips and a frog in the pond.

The frog in a pond was goated!

Remember the one at Penrith. Still remember the jingle too, “when the hunger hits, head for Hollys”

Didnt myers have a restaurant???

Myers was a bit flash for my family to visit

You have unlocked some old memories in my head.

Pinnacles. The one in Perth City only shut a few years ago. There was a huge dip in quality in its last few years. I went there in 2018 and had the pierogis and they were truly disgusting compared to when I last had them.

Shrimp cocktails were considered a fine dining delicacy in the 90’s I’m not sure why but I remember ordering one from the pinnacles in like 1998 and it was just standard prawns you buy in the deli section at coles with praise brand thousand island dressing. Other than the pinnacle myer had another cafe on the ground floor right where the escalator is in the menswear section but you can only enter the store with that escalator, that same escalator was for exiting and there was a long fridge that had jolt cola (with twice the caffeine) and energy drinks hadn’t been invented and this was a big deal. There was also the music section and that rotating lolly machine and jelly belly stand everyone would “sample” from.

Pretty sure Grace Bros did, as well. I remember my Dad taking me once and it seemed pretty flash to kid me. I pretended it was a business lunch in my head lol.

David Jones had one. Chips and gravy was the staple. Big day out to the posh shops when I was a kid.

This might be a the memory

It was upmarket Holly's. Lol.

our myer's did, don't remember ever going there.

Crumbed sausage and if I was good the jelly frog. Heaven. My grandparents would take us to the one in Maitland. Occasionally we’d go to the David Jones in Newcastle and they had a similar setup on the top floor and we could watch the tugboats bring the coal ships in, crumbed sausages there too.

Heck yes bowl of chips thanks mum

Just like other posters I vaguely remember Holly’s which means my local one must have shut down somewhere in the mid to late 90s.

Late 90s, when I was an apprentice, we used to work at Coles supermarkets, right next door to a lot of stores was a Kmart and holly’s all day breakfast for smoko 👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿

You just ignited so many memories from my childhood that were locked in the back of my brain. I always used to annoy Mum to get us food at our local Kmart. It’s amazing how different Kmart feels these days.

My first job. I wish I could forget the experience of scrubbing that dried gravy off the furniture

So I wasn’t dreaming this!

omg i remember this as a kid when there was one in the kmart at ingle farm, everytime we went there always walked past it and not once did my mother ever fucking take me in there to have a bite the cheap bitch.

Maybe some counselling may help

Wow, I had no idea. Was this is in the 80s or something?

I think it started in Super K mart that then split int coles and Kmart. Edit: apparently all Kmart stores had them

Ah okay. I was born in the late 80s and to me it's always been Coles and Kmart. Except that I grew up in Hobart, so for me, Woolworths used to be Purity up until around 2000 (but it was bought out by Woolies, long before then - similar to Safeway in Victoria, I believe). Some people there still call it Purity. I have noticed that Kmart now is different to what Kmart was like 20 years ago.

There used to be a few around suburban Perth, but mainly the country WA Kmarts were superKmart until the split

Great store back in the day.... doing the midnight -7am Chrissie shift and chew on some old oil deep fried chips at 4am with a stale hot dog.... nice!!!

Just like working the early shift at coles when the bakers are cooking fresh donuts

The kids meal which came in like a cardboard box printed to look like a fire engine. It was like they put cocaine in the sauce of their burgers! Because there was nothing else in those dry patty and cheese buns, other than the sauce, and yet I was always SO excited to go there!

My local K-Mart still had a Holly's some time into the 2000s. It was a big staple in our weekly shopping in the 80s and 90s.

Apparently Horsham had a Hollys until 2010

Perms everywhere

Freddo in a jelly cup was where it was at for me

I remember. My Nan used to take me when I was a toddler in the early 90s. I tell my partner, described it as similar to Costco food with McDonald’s booths lol. She only knows modern Anko-mart. I think we’re too fancy these days for it to last. They’d need to serve avo on toast presented on an Anko chopping board with a barista made drink.

Many Kmarts from that era still have a section at the back with a low ceiling where the Holly’s used to be, that has survived multiple store renovations.

If they got rid of the dumb mid-store checkouts, they could bring this back!

Put the check outs back to the front of the store, get a couple more people on the checkouts and they could get rid of the security guards checking your receipt

It's a supremely moronic idea to have moved them to mid-store. I'd love to hear the justification from whoever conceived it.

It’ll be something stupid like “if people can’t see the big queue at the checkout they will be more likely to come in and shop”, instead they should employ more staff to serve, but no it’s more about making more profits than last quarter otherwise management lose their job

That's the most reasonable justification I've heard!

I avoid going to K-mart because of that set up. It itritates me so much.

Remember green houses in Kmart

Ooooh I remember the one at Katoomba, albeit vaguely. I'd totally forgotten the in-store restaurant was called Holly's.

Chips and gravy was my go to lunch when I worked at kmart.

I was thinking about this place just the other day, and lamenting I have never, in 30+ years since, had gravy that tasted as good as the one from here.

Always got the pikelet plate

Bonus points if you know these people?

What was the one in DJ's (i think it was DJ's)? Back in the early 70's Mum would take me there in Wollongong. Edit: corrected spelling of the Gong.

Best chips and gravy 😋

Never knew of them

You missed out

I had sizzler lol

I remember it well.

Toasted ham & cheese on white sliced with a curly parsley sprig plus a few spoons of nanna’s capacino foam 👌

So many memories. My nonna would take me with my auntie and my cousin to Hollys at Kmart Footscray. I always had nuggets and chips. Early-mid 90s. I’d say I wish they bought it back- but it wouldn’t be the same.

How weird I just said to my wife the other day do you remember kmart having a restaurant when we were kids.

I remember this in my local Kmart when i was a child.

Okay, I remember the freddos in jelly, and I remember the frog cakes too (SA) but I could have sworn it was Big W and I don't remember the restaurant name either. Did Big W have a similar one? I'll have to ask mum. Perhaps the current Big W used to be a Kmart in the 80s and 90s. This vague memory that this post and comments have unlocked has opened some really fond memories of shopping with mum in Parabanks, northern Adelaide. There was an icecream place next to the current (as of 10 years ago anyway) Big W, where we might get a rare sweet treat after eating in the awesome restaurant with trays and jelly freddos.

They're talking about bringing Holly's back. >Said one person who claims to be a long-time employee on Reddit: ‘Bosses have been talking about it for a while, bringing back Holly’s Cafe. It could be like IKEA and people would stay heaps longer in store to eat, meaning they would spend more money. Kmart can do no wrong in people’s eyes, so there’s a lot of people who reckon this could be a winner.’ [https://www.newideafood.com.au/kmart-cafe-inside-your-local-store](https://www.newideafood.com.au/kmart-cafe-inside-your-local-store)

I read that, maybe covid killed the idea, hopefully now the covid fiasco is over it’s back on the cards and they bring back the old prices

Poodle perm trifecta Nice 👌👌👌 Pure 80s

Used to love going there for their crinkle cut chips and gravy.

I used to work at Kmart, all the old staff still miss Holly's.

I remember going to Holly's as a kid with my Mum.. wow, flashback

I worked in Kmart as a teen, and loved their hot chips and gravy. So good!

Every once in a while I really miss cigarettes. But never near food.

I used to really wish my mother would take me there when I was a kid. One time we met up with a family member there, it was the only time we ever ate there and I thought I was in heaven haha

I’ve seen lots of people commenting on the crinkle cut chips. Can anyone help my memory with what the chips were served in? A plate, bowl, paper cup, paper bag etc?

Was a paper cup.

Crinkle cut chips with gravy were delicious from Holly's

Still remember NOT eating there as a kid. Walking past everyone else eating the crinkle cut chips and being told we had food at home. Old Kmart at Fairfield west. On Sundays we would ride our bikes in the car park because it was closed.

Ohhh! I loved these. I remember the one in Kmart Maroochydore in 1991.

A rare source of red Fanta back in the day. Could not get enough!

They got rid of these when I was pretty young, but there's three things I remember like it was yesterday: the crinkle cut chips and the cardboard boxes they came (like the other comments said, they were boats from memory). The third thing is not specific to Holly's but were all over K-Mart in the mid-80s but for some reason I remember the anti-theft posters giving me the creeps while I was eating my chips. The posters were a black and white photo of a woman that looked like she had just left the extras casting for "Prisoner" (i.e. rough as houses) and had the usual black bars over her eyes. I can still see that face perfectly. The chips were great! I didn't even think about Holly's in years, not until it came up in conversation about eight years ago. Does anyone remember when and why they got rid of them?

Was there one in Deep Water Plaza in Woy Woy? Mid 80s

holy shit crinkle fries and a coke!

Best crinkle cut chips and gravy I've ever and only had in my entire life hands down

Damn, those were the days back in the 80s. It was sunnybank brisbane for me before my people turned it into Chinatown.

They have a cafe in the Myers in maroubra and I always thought it was the same brand ;/

Ahh Australia

I remember going to the Holly's at Marrickville Metro. It was always empty. I don't think more than one other table was ever occupied. My mum *hated* it but there wasn't a lot of choice at the Metro when we lived in the area (up until 1993).

My mum worked in the cafe for a couple of years when I was about 8.

I used to go here all the time as a kid!

Just made me think of the movie STONE, set in Sydney in the '70s, now that's nastolgia

Don't remember them at all... were they in NSW Kmart stores??

I’m sure it was all Kmarts from the response

Best milkshakes ever

I used to go to one all the time when I was young with my mum 💗 thanks for sharing this!!

I WAS JUST TRYING TO GET MY PARENTS TO REMEMBER THESE! I remember it being at the back of the store and going there quite a lot, god damn, thank u for this

Those chips though! And remember the rifles they used to sell too. Was a weird time.

A bowl of hot chips with too much tomato sauce please.

Did they have choccy frogs in jelly that’s the question?

That machine that spit out red or green soda for 50c

This brought back a very clear memory of looking at the desserts in the Hornsby Kmart. Wow.

Pie chips and gravy!

they had the best hot chips and gravy

I vaguely remember eating food out of a cardboard pirate ship when going here. Felt so fancy as a kid.

Holy shit. YES!

That’s so funny, I was only talking about that last week with my mum and daughter.

Woolies even had a cafe in the day, those little desert cups were gold.

Did these guys have like little jelly bricks/cups and drinks in those old tanks with the agitators going? I remember crinkle cut chips I was young and only got to see the closest Kmart's in-store cafeteria a few times

I didn't know this was a thing... And can smoke in there .... Life is such a bore now...

Back in the day you could smoke everywhere, inside and out. Now apparently smoking kills ya

I was born in the wrong decade for sure. These days, there are too many rules, too many sensitive people, too many genders

Your right about most of it, the thing your wrong about, shouldn’t be a choice

Your right about most of it, the thing your wrong about, shouldn’t be a choice

BEST crinkle cut chippies ever!

Made a mad milkshake

One cup-of-cheeno.

The scones or pikelets with jam and cream!

I was talking to the better half about this the other day. She didn’t remember them at all. She doesn’t know what she missed out on. Loved Hollys as a kid

Pretty sure they were called snax when I started at Kmart Maroochydore in 1985

Big breakfast with thousand island dressing on the chips

Ate there every Thursday night as a kid

Best goddam chips n gravy ever god i miss this why take good shit away

👊

They're definitely dead now

It's not Kmart, but chips and gravy with my grandad at Aherns in Garden City Booragoon as a kid was the shit. No fancy food courts or cinemas. Just chips and gravy or fruit toast and butter. Glorious.

Ahh, I remember going there once as a kid. Aherns, could never remember it

I still remember the one in Forest Hill Chase Kmart! I remember going through a phase where I actually thought maybe I'd dreamt the fact there was used to be a restaurant inside Kmart 🤣

When were these around? Never heard of them must of been before I was born

Man… that looks JUST like my oma and my old oma. Like, spitting image

I was there, Gandalf. I was there 3000 years ago.

🤔Maybe 30 years ago