Cafe 1928

Cafe 1928 sits inside the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens on Mount Perry Road, which makes it one of the easiest dog stops in town: coffee and a long green walk in the same trip. The outdoor tables face the gardens, dogs are welcome on a lead, and the whole grounds are dog-friendly on leash, so the walk can start before you sit down.

The dog setup

Dogs join you at the outdoor seating looking onto the gardens, which is the spot to aim for with a dog beside you. Keep the lead on, both for the cafe and the gardens themselves, where pets are welcome on leash along the sealed and unsealed paths. Staff are used to dog walkers passing through, but there is no dedicated water station, so bring your own bowl. Hours run 9am to 3pm daily, stretching to 4pm on Sundays.

Pepsi: gardens on one side, scones on the other. A cafe you can walk into off a leash trail is my kind of architecture.

Worth knowing

The menu is casual breakfast and brunch with light lunches: eggs benedict, steak sandwiches, a seafood basket and shakes, plus scones that pair nicely with the garden views. It is a family-friendly room and it stays busy through the middle of the day when the tour groups come through. The miniature train, Hinkler hall and aviary sit nearby, so the precinct has plenty going on beyond the coffee.

Getting there and parking

Find it at 6 Mount Perry Road, right near the main gardens entrance and the miniature train station. The gardens car park is free and roomy, a short flat stroll from the cafe door, which makes arriving with a dog straightforward by car. From the Bundaberg CBD it is a few minutes' drive north-west.

Close by with the dogs

In town, River Cruz Cafe welcomes pets on its riverside deck and Grindstone Coffee House is the other coffee stop, while Indulge Bistro covers a sit-down dinner.

More options are on the QLD cafes list or in the Bundaberg Central guide.