On his last day, after kissing his wife goodbye, Rocco Eliche donned a crisp white shirt, tucked it into pressed black slacks, tied the shoelaces of his black trainers, and headed out the door.

Formed in the mid-1950s by migrant brothers Leo and Vildo Pellegrini, the Espresso Bar was their way of bringing a sense of home to their new lives in Australia. The bar was taken over in 1974 by ...