The historic building in which our restaurant is located and the chimney outside are the only surviving elements of Adelaide’s once busy City Destructor Complex. Established in 1909, it exemplified a maxim of that time, ‘waste not, want not.’

The chimney and the disinfector building are a small part of the former Adelaide complex, which once comprised a refuse Destructor, a tin bailing press, clinker paver mill, a brewery, flour mill and biscuit factory, mortar mill, boot and vinegar factories and a flag making plant. Unsurprisingly, at that time, a restaurant on the site was not on the horizon!

It’s hard to imagine now, especially given today’s focus on reduced emissions and best practice, but Adelaide’s Destructor with its 38m tall chimney, was operating until the early 1950s. For more than forty years the bulk of Adelaide’s rubbish was brought here until a special committee – set up to investigate alternatives for rubbish disposal – opted for landfill at Wingfield in 1952. The Destructor may not have been popular with Adelaide’s city residents, but it was certainly effective.

The Destructor worked twenty-four hours a day and the furnaces produced so much heat that the resultant steam powered an electricity generator. The generator supplied this whole site. The complex also used the steam to best disinfect laundry.

The steam disinfector building, now home to Adelaide restaurant The Greek on Halifax, was used for the fumigation of bedding and clothing. In 1910, it was reported that a quarter of an hour in the system was sufficient to effectively sterilise garments and bedding. Following the steam process, the items were placed in a steam laundry followed by pressing with electric irons. For this service, individuals were charged a guinea per van-load, although for those too poor to pay, the service was free. Excess electricity was fed back to the Adelaide Electric Company to light the nearby streets.

The Greek on Halifax restaurant has retained the integrity of the original disinfector building with its walls of fine red Hallett bricks – all 400,000 of them – and gazes upwards at the Metropolitan Company’s 150,000 brick chimney.

At night, enjoy the restaurant and be captivated by the glowing red, orange and yellow light from the furnace best seen through the slumped glass panel set into the chimney opening. The paving design surrounding the chimney connects with the manufacture of clinker pavers on the site as well as the original architecture of the Adelaide buildings.

Compiled by Jenny Forrest.

Reference Patricia Sumerling, ‘Brief history of development of the Destructor site, Halifax Street and its surroundings’ July 1993