Opie’s Bakery Cafe

Opie’s Bakery used to provide Adelaide with most of it’s bread way back in the days before every petrol pump bowser had a special deal on muffins and loafs of bread. The tradition seeps through this sparse and airy café. You can park out the back off the main road and sit underneath the old trees (and watch the traffic) or you can sit inside and enjoy the sense of light and space that suggests it is a simpler time.
The food produce is traditional pies, pasties, sandwiches, bread, scones, vanilla slices, all the favourites. Up on the wall are large photographs and nostalgic memorabilia from the early days when Opie’s were in their prime. Now although things have changed, the quality of the food remains. There is a palpable sense of dignity and tradition inside this place and strange as it may seem the whole place feels right in the correct way. Right in the way that suggests you need a lot of room in a bakery, because people are going to crowd around and line up more often than not; you see once upon a time this was the standard — a bakery was white or cream coloured on the inside and had ample space for several people to line up and collect their daily bread.
If I were in charge of the social outings for a Christian Women’s Association group, I’d be making sure there was a visit here once in a while, for remembrance of gentler times. It isn’t exactly a tourist destination, because it is one of those local things, almost a private memory to be had in a reflective moment; Opie’s bread. The lovely loaf.
Having said it isn’t a tourist destination I guess it could be for some because it has a giant loaf of bread on the roof, not quite the Big Banana, but it doesn’t get wet when you leave it out in the rain like a certain cake once left in MacArthur Park; and I think they’re using the same recipe as they did back in the day. Try it out yourself.