{"id":23471,"date":"2019-04-04T19:54:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23471"},"modified":"2019-04-04T19:54:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:54:31","slug":"time-travellers-diary-milkshake-rattle-and-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-milkshake-rattle-and-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER’S DIARY: [Milk]Shake, Rattle and Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Michelle Johnson
Aurora Museum & Archives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1927, Archie and Lorne Cousins approached Council with a plan to establish a dairy\nand pasteurizing plant on the southeast corner of Yonge and Mosley Streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their request was\ngranted and the old Royal Hotel, more recently known as The Club, was\ndemolished. Construction of the Dairy was completed by the Aurora Building\nCompany, which at the time was owned by the neighbouring Browning family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cousins Dairy opened\nin November 1927 and was described as \u201cone of the most up-to-date and best\nequipped sanitary dairies in the country\u201d (Aurora Banner, November 18, 1927).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dairy was the\nfirst in the district to produce pasteurized and homogenized milk. They also\nsold chocolate milk in 1927 \u2013 two years before it was available in Toronto!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business was very\nsuccessful and quickly expanded with a Newmarket location opening in 1930\nfollowed by one in Bradford in 1932. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1947, a new\ntwo-storey building was constructed as an addition to the existing building.\nThe following year, Cousins Dairy began manufacturing ice cream and the first floor\nof the newly renovated building featured a modern ice cream parlour. The ice\ncream must have been delicious because in 1951 they produced 189,270.59 litres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upper level of the\nbuilding was home to Aurora Recreational Parlours and featured a four-lane\nbowling alley. It soon became known as Benny\u2019s Alley, after the manager Ben\nHarrison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local businesses were\nquick to establish teams, which included the Sisman Shoes Brown Bottoms,\nCousins Dairy Milk Shakers and the Scanlon Bakery Dough Punchers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the only\nbowling alley in Aurora until 1963, when a new more modern facility opened on\nEdward Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new facility\nfeatured sixteen-lanes and multiple billiard tables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with\ncompetition, Archie Cousins decided to repurpose the upper floor of the Dairy;\nit would become the first commercial shuffleboard court in the Metro-Toronto\narea. The space took on multiple purposes and became known as the Fiesta Room,\nwhich could be rented out for banquets, dances and club meetings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cousins Dairy was in\nbusiness for over forty years when the decision was made to merge with\nGlenville Farms in June of 1968. Two years later the building on the corner of\nYonge and Mosley Streets was sold to the Spasopoulos family who opened up the\nTrio Restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good luck on the southeast corner of Yonge\nand Mosley Street proved to be enduring and the Trio Restaurant was in business\nfor over thirty years.  <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michelle JohnsonAurora Museum & Archives In 1927, Archie and Lorne Cousins approached Council with a plan to establish a dairy and pasteurizing plant on the southeast corner of Yonge and Mosley Streets. Their request was granted and the old Royal Hotel, more recently known as The Club, was demolished. Construction of the Dairy was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-66z","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 16:58:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}