Frank's Food Market could virtually be given to a suitable new owner

Frank's Fruit Market is just one of many endangered Sydney food institutions. Owners Frank and Mary Bonfante have operated it for 45 years, but the Haberfield site has been home to a fruit shop since 1925, successfully navigating recessions, a depression and the incursion of supermarkets.

Now Frank's faces an increasingly common threat to its future – looming retirement and no family to take the reins.

"It's not a lifestyle I want," says Frank and Mary's son Gaetano, who grew up in and around the fruit shop but now has his own career internationally as a tenor.

Gaetano has memories of his father dealing with producers to secure the best tomatoes and zucchini flowers, and stories of Frank in the early years sleeping in his car out the front of the old produce market at Haymarket to secure a prized parking spot.

The Bonfantes don't want to see a part of Haberfield history leave the strip. "My parents have tried to sell the business word of mouth, but they ideally want it to stay a fruit shop," Gaetano Bonfante says. "If they can find the right person they'll train them up and introduce them to all their contacts. They'd virtually give it away," he says.

It's a familiar story in Sydney. Over in Petersham, the owners of rebooted milk bar concept Daisy's are also looking to exit the business. They are searching for a new owner who'll continue to build the brand, a shining example of the 1950s-style milk bar.