The process for working out what to sell in the café has always been guided by the questions – What do we as riders want to eat? What tastes good? What is local? Can we use organic/free range?

Coffee

We considered many coffee options before we opened the café and came up with Jasper’s Fair Trade and organic coffee. Wells Trenfield (Jasper co-founder) grew up along the trail and so we thought the fit was perfect.

Muffins

Over the 4 and a bit years we have been open we have become known for our fantastic Cog-baked muffins. It’s simple really, quality ingredients + home cooking = yum.

Our top sellers are the ‘20K’ (it should get you 20 kilometres) with carrot, apple (about ½ cup of fruit/veg in each muffin!), coconut, sultanas and of course delicious cream cheese icing. Banana and dark chocolate has always been a winner (again with about ½ a banana in each muffin, none of these ‘pretend’ flavours!); and the perennial favourite – Berry White (often lovingly referred to as Barry White after a customer misread the sign!) which are best straight out of the oven with white chocolate oozy from the crevices and the blackberries (grown on the farm we live on 5 kilometres from the shop) almost too hot to eat.

Toasties

We wondered what to feed riders on the go for lunch and came up with the idea of toasties – quick, easy, fresh. We use organic sour dough bread and a range of ingredients such as Meredith Goats cheese, Nimbin tasty cheese, roast pumpkin, our Cog-made pesto and olive tepanade. Vegan options available.

Drinks

Thick creamy milkshakes. Mango, raspberry or banana smoothies. Specials – Morroccan iced mint tea.

We tried many local organic juices before deciding that the New Zealand-born range of Pheonix was the best we had come across (those Kiwis do a good job don’t they?).

We also have a range of Australian Tiro Italian-style soft drinks, thirst-quenching without too much sugar.

Not many people recognise our sports drink of choice – Staminade, it’s the Aussie original before we got bombarded by US-owned Powerade, Gatorade etc.