Mace's HotBread

The bakery on Pine Street carries a nice piece of continuity: Brett Gorry started here as a fifteen-year-old apprentice and, with his wife Jessica, a pastry chef, has owned the place since 2010. The doors open at four in the morning, and by daylight the cabinets are full, with pies and sausage rolls that draw devoted reviews, cakes and slices, and a patisserie selection more ambitious than a highway town might lead you to expect. Regulars come for apple turnovers and cream-filled long donuts, while hungrier travellers stop for steak sandwiches or fish and chips. Miles is a natural break on the Warrego Highway between Dalby and the Maranoa, and this is the town's baking institution, the sort of family-run operation that anchors a small main street. Quality and consistency, rather than novelty, are the point, and both are well established here.