Peninsula Cafe

Peninsula Cafe is at Shop 16/25 Bellarine Highway inside the Bellarine Village Shopping Centre in Newcomb, serving breakfast, brunch and lunch from 8:30am to 5pm on weekdays, 9am to 3pm on Saturday and 10am to 2pm on Sunday. Dogs are welcome in the outdoor undercover seating area, which keeps the cafe usable with a dog all year round.

The dog setup

The covered outdoor area is the dog zone; keep your dog on lead and settled within the seating perimeter. Staff often bring water bowls and treats are generally on hand for well-behaved dogs, though both come from social posts rather than a formal policy, so treat them as likely rather than guaranteed. Winter helps too: heaters and blankets come out when the temperature drops.

The menu

The kitchen does an affordable all-day menu with a strong vegetarian and vegan streak; the avo smash with haloumi and kale chips and the sweet potato toast are the orders regulars point to, while the Peninsula Benedict and the big breakfast carry the traditional side. Toasted sandwiches, sweet chilli chicken wraps and mini churros with cinnamon sugar round it out, and staff handle dietary requests and allergies willingly. Service is quick, which suits a pit stop between errands in the shopping centre.

Getting there and a run before coffee

The cafe sits at the corner of Bellarine Highway and Wilsons Road, with ample free parking directly in front of the shopping centre. For exercise first, the fenced run at Aldershot Reserve Dog Park in St Albans Park is a short drive east, and Geelong council's designated off-leash zones at Eastern Park and Howard Glover Reserve sit toward East Geelong. For a second coffee, First Chapter Coffee in Moolap and WYM at the Geelong Botanic Gardens are both dog-friendly and close by.

More of the area's dog-friendly venues are on the Newcomb destination page, with the state list in the VIC cafes index.