Hippy Java

Hippy Java is a book cafe at 18 Main Road, Boolaroo, set inside a century-old former butcher's shop with a $10 secondhand book nook to browse over a flat white. It is family-owned, opens 6am to 1:30pm weekdays and 7am to 12:30pm Saturday, and dogs are welcome at the outdoor, footpath-facing seating, so a coffee-and-books stop is a two-person job when the dog comes along.

The dog setup

Dogs settle outside rather than in among the shelves, on lead, and a browsed book stack makes the wait pleasant enough for both halves of the party. The footpath faces a working Main Road strip, so a dog comfortable with passing foot traffic suits it best, and weekday mornings before the school run are the calmest window. On-street parking runs along Main Road and fills in the morning rush, so allow a short walk if you arrive late.

Worth knowing

The cafe pours quality Australian-sourced coffee and bakes its own food, with orange poppyseed muffins and toasties, including a pumpkin toastie, doing the rounds. The curated new and secondhand books are half the point and the reason the room fills on weekday mornings, and the occasional Tales by Candlelight evening is a good excuse to come back without the dog. Sunday is closed, so plan the dog visit around the other six days.

Pair the visit with Lake Macquarie proper: Speers Point Fenced Dog Park is a short drive for an off-leash run, Harry and Lola's in Speers Point Park is the area's dog-treat-and-pup-photo cafe, and The Pavement Society is the other Boolaroo coffee stop. More are in the NSW cafes index.

Pepsi: outdoor table early, muffin crumbs, and the humans argue about which secondhand book to take home.