He was a soldier and a hero. His family called him "the General". He made milkshakes in Summer Hill for 63 years and not once did he turn up for work in anything other than a long-sleeved shirt and tie.

George Poulos with his daughter, Aphrodite, and son, Nik, outside his milk bar in 2014. "It gave him something to do — to get up in the morning and do things." Credit:Wolter Peeters

On Tuesday last week, George Poulos opened The Rio, his famous old milk bar in Smith Street as usual. At 92, Mr Poulos was frail. He may have spent more of the day sitting on his sofa bed behind the shop than at the counter, where he displayed a Greek flag and a photograph of himself as a young soldier. Perhaps he watched a video — he liked John Wayne movies, especially Rio Bravo, and I Love Lucy and M*A*S*H. Perhaps he made someone a milkshake. Perhaps he didn't. Most only came to gawk — at the vintage shop, its retro signage and the old man and his scant range of confectionery. Few spent money.

Perhaps Mr Poulos closed early: he hadn't been well lately, according to his son. But earlier in the month he'd begged to get out of hospital. "He needed to go back and open his business," says Nik Poulos, who arrived at The Rio on Wednesday afternoon to discover it was locked up. He jumped over a back fence and broke in to discover his father had died some time after he had closed the day before.