Merino Bakery — Restaurant in Longreach

Definitely popular place and busy all the time. However, the excessive use of plastic for their prepared sandwiches was distasteful. A simple wax-coated paper wrapped ¾ around the sandwiches/buns would do the job instead of the large, thick plastic packaging one is forced to consume when purchasing a take-away sandwich. In fact, the next door bakery uses such environmentally-friendly packaging, and so I stopped going here and go there instead. I vote with my dollar. I know that 1/4-open food would preclude the ability to have the sandwiches be hand-selected by the public, so swapping packaging would require altering the means in which the product was sold (from behind the counter), but the cashier has to handle the sandwich anyway to check the customer out regardless. Thus, I do not envisage all that much time saved by having the customer handle the heavily-packaged products themselves. Alternatively, a quick-fix step in the right direction that would not require altering the way things are run there would be to swap the thick plastic packaging for a saran-wrap option, covering food safety standards whilst reducing plastic consumption (by weight) by probably 5-fold. Either way I think it’s time to change. Isn’t the environment worth it? Please look up microplastics and plastic problems on doccos etc if anyone is unaware and needs convincing that we need to phase out plastics (or at least drastically reduce) our dependency on plastic as soon as possible. Thank you for your...

The Merino bakery is located on the corner across from the movie theatre. Decorated in farm shed style, a corrugated iron wall has interesting old shearing tools, while the opposite dark brown wall features early black and white photo's of the area. Glass cabinets display sandwiches, bread-roles, salads and hot pies & pasties. The counter cabinet is full of cakes, pastries donuts etc and inviting loaves of fresh bread adorn the back wall.Tables, chairs, and a window bench with high stools furnish the interior, while plenty more are available outside overlooking the street. We chose for lunch, two steak & mushroom pies. These would have to be the best we have tasted. Generous flakey pastry with deep steak and mushroom filling, delicious. We finished with two very creamy latte's. This is a cafe/bakery that excels in freshly prepared food, good service, and a comfortable range of seating options. Understandably the cafe was packed at lunch time with queues at the counter. A must visit when...

you don't need any sauce at this bakery, I am a connoisseure for everything pastry and safe to say I'm going to be indulging myself with these pastries for the short time I am here. not only was the staff very welcoming but the atmosphere was alive, in no way did I see any staff without a smile on their dial. this is a MUST stop. don't get one pie/snagwrap, you will need 2 to satisfy your hunger towards these awesome in house made pastries. I have only ever heard rumours of this place from people over 800kms away and safe to say they are right! if your heading in this direction please stop into this wonderful bakery and help support keeping this place open! this place throws love at their food! I will be stopping in EVERYTIME I come out this way, I will also go out of my way for a place like this... thankyou for making my...