The Other Bird

The Other Bird is a modern Australian cafe at 2 Margaret Street in East Toowoomba, doing breakfast and lunch seven days a week from 6:30am to 2:30pm. The dog draw is the sunny, turf-lined outdoor dining area, which is a genuinely comfortable place to sit with a leashed dog rather than a token strip of footpath.

The dog setup

Dogs are welcome in the outdoor garden seating, where turf underfoot and plenty of sun make it easy for a dog to settle. Seating with your dog is limited to the outside area; the indoor dining room is people only. Staff are accommodating and water is often provided, but bring a backup bowl on busy weekends. Free puppuccinos are frequently on offer, a small touch that makes the visit feel made for dogs as much as their humans.

Worth knowing

The menu leans on local produce and house-baked goods: a big breakfast with pork and fennel sausage, maple bacon butter pancakes, pain perdu French toast with coffee cold foam, plus salads and sandwiches for lunch. It is one of Toowoomba's better-regarded breakfast rooms, so weekends fill early. Getting in ahead of the mid-morning rush also means first pick of the turf tables.

Getting there and parking

The cafe sits at the top of the Range on Margaret Street, and parking is easier than most of Toowoomba: there are two dedicated on-site car parks, a small one at the front and a much larger one at the rear accessed directly from Margaret Street, with free street parking nearby as backup.

Close by with the dogs

Queens Park dog off-leash area is close enough to bookend the meal with a proper run, and Urth Cafe and Co or Sage and Butler in the same suburb keep the dog-friendly cafe crawl going if you are making a morning of it.

Pepsi: turf under the table, a puppuccino in my bowl, and nobody batted an eyelid. This is my kind of brunch queue.