THIS is where it all started the little cafe with its distinctive Vitrolite green glass sign on the corner of Duke Street and Millerston next to the Scotia picture house.

But the painting hanging in pride of place in Coia's Cafe is all that remains of the eaterie opened by indomitable Italian mamma Amalia Coia nearly 80 years ago, because No 570 Duke Street was razed during road-widening 20 years ago.

Customers came from all over the East End and beyond to the shop in Duke Street, Dennistoun, for Amalia's legendary home-made ice-cream.

Amalia's son Nicky laughs: "The secret recipe would have been handed down from generation to generation,"

In turn, Nicky has handed it on to his son, Alfredo, who now runs the cafe.

"Iced drinks were the big thing, and people would come in on a Sunday morning for a ginger beer with ice-cream in it. It was a great thing after a Saturday night out.

"A McCallum- an ice-cream with raspberry sauce - was also popular and the story goes it's called after a Celtic coach.

"They would train round the streets of Parkhead and this chap McCallum would pop into our cafe asking for an ice-cream with raspberry."

Many a romance flourished over a McCallum or a plate of hot peas and vinegar at Coia's Cafe.

With its beautifully-crafted wooden booths, made by Amalia's husband Charles, a shopfitter to trade, the cafe had a unique atmosphere and generations of Glaswegians still have fond memories of the place where they did their courting.

It was there retired hairdresser Mary Eadie met future husband Jim off the bus before going to the dancing or the pictures. Mary, 67, was brought up in Carntyne and moved to Clarkston when she married 40 years ago, but is still a regular at Coia's.

"I've been coming here for over 50 years," said Mary, tucking into a plate of fish and chips along with son, Graham, 29, a home support worker.

"Even when I was a girl, Coia's Cafe was famous. It was a great landmark.

"This is one of the few places in Glasgow you can take your whole family. My grandchildren love it.

It's a marvellous atmosphere and Nicky and Alfredo are just the same terrific people they've always been.

"Their motto is: We don't serve fast food. We serve food as fast as we can make it," she laughs.

"Sometimes there's a queue at the door and that tells you something," adds Graham.

Amalia herself might just be a tad bewildered were she to walk into the cafe today, though.

Alfredo has recently expanded the cafe into a full-blown deli and licensed restaurant.

You can still sit with a cola float - a tall glass of cola with a scoop of ice-cream in it - but should you be in celebratory mood, you can also lash out on a bottle of Moet-Chandon or a glass of house red to wash down your home-made lasagne.

Claire Watson, 26, from Stepps, a staff nurse at Parkhead Hospital, recalls her parents bringing her to Coia's as a child.

But recently, she and bar manager friend Emma Rattray, also 26, noticed the new-look cafe as they were driving past and now it's a regular meeting place. A look back at Coia family's cool business Nicky when he joined the cafe in the 1950s A beautifully crafted booth in the old days Nicky mans the cafe back in the 1980s Son Alfredo was proud to join him Nicky stands proudly outside Coia's today

WHILE while you can still buy ice-cream made to Amalia's recipe, the Coias have introduced a host of new flavours ranging from mango to Irn-Bru.

Speaking between mouthfuls of chocolate chip - Claire - and black cherry - Emma - they can't praise the place enough.

"The service is really good and the food's lovely and good value," agrees Claire.

"Before we go into town on a Friday night, we'll come here first for a bit of dinner. And we've said to friends you'll have to go'. The mussels are great."

Today's sophisticated customers demand Italian delicacies such as home-made pesto and seafood salad provided by Alfredo's wife, Antonia.

"The world is getting smaller and people have travelled. They've got a taste for the proper stuff and when they come home, they want to try it here," says Nicky.

"They ask for polenta now. That was a rustic food in the south of Italy and I never thought I'd see the day with people asking for it here.

"The East End is coming up," insists Nicky, raising his voice above the hiss of the espresso machine, the clatter of cutlery and the buzz of mid-afternoon chatter.

"Believe me, it will overtake the West End," he predicts.

"If you went back 10 years and told someone you'd seen a couple sitting having a coffee outside a cafe in Duke Street, they'd have thought you were loopy but it's happened."

At 74, Nicky is in theory semi-retired but the cafe is obviously his second home.

He's been here since he was 16 but it wasn't meant to work out like this.

Nicky was about to take his Highers, and wanted to be a language teacher, when his older brother, Alfredo, was killed in Palestine in late 1949.

Alfredo had been destined to join the family firm' but the tragedy changed everything.

Duty called. His parents needed help, so Nicky started work in the cafe in 1950.

"Family came first," he says simply. "I did the right thing at the time."

His parents both came from southern Italy to Glasgow at the turn of the 20th century, and met and married here.

"We progressed from selling high-class confectionery and ice-cream into the sandwich trade.

"In those days, cafes opened from 9am to 11pm every day and you got a half day on a Thursday if you were a good boy," he recalls ruefully.

Back then was the era of the jukebox craze.

The outlet for kids in the 1950s was listening to the juke-box and sitting around drinking Coca Cola.

Gangster Arthur Thomson was a regular.

Nicky says: "He used to come in for his Sullivan and Powell cigars, the only kind he liked.

"A very pleasant man though he once complained to me that one of the cigars he'd bought was split."

Wisely, Nicky changed it.

Davie Bryce, founder of Calton Athletic - Coia's sponsors the football team - once brought in Robbie Coltrane and Lenny Henry when they were making the film Alive and Kicking about Bryce's fight against the city's scourge of drugs.

The regulars still come in for their traditional breakfasts. Nicky reels off a list: "Eggs Benedict or a right fry-up. Sausage, bacon, egg, black pudding, potato scone, fried tomato. Especially on a Sunday."

He laughs. "This generation is too lazy to make its own.

"They all come to the cafe for it."