Moama Bakery

Moama Bakery is a good bet if you're after a proper bakery lunch or breakfast around Echuca, with a dine-in space as well as takeaway. It's a roomy spot with plenty of seating, toilets inside, and both a free car park and free street parking out the front, so it suits families and road-trippers as well as people grabbing something on the run. The entrance and car park are wheelchair accessible too.

Pies are what the place is known for, and the cabinet runs well beyond them: sausage rolls, pasties, salad rolls and sandwiches all get a mention. One visitor called the vegetable pasty one of the nicest they'd ever had, and a delivery driver who stops in most weeks rates the spinach roll as the highlight, cheesy and packed with greens. Opinion on the pies themselves is a little mixed. Most people enjoy them, though one local found the Ned Kelly pie on the salty side, and another reckoned the top crust could be baked a bit longer. The bread and cakes get a good word, and a traveller sampling vanilla slices along the Murray towns was happy with the crisp pastry, light custard and sensible amount of icing.

The staff come in for a lot of praise. People describe them as friendly, welcoming and genuinely interested in their customers, and one family still talks about how kindly the team handled their four-year-old's meltdown. Breakfast is on offer, hot drinks are served alongside the food rather than after it, and there's plenty of hot and cold drinks, with coffee that people say is nice.

On price, one visitor found a pie, a sandwich and a roll added up more than they'd expected for a bakery lunch, though others call it well priced, so it's worth a glance at the cabinet before you order. Cards and tap-and-go payments are accepted.

It opens early on weekdays and keeps shorter hours on weekends, so check the hours before you head in. For a pie, a roll and a coffee in Echuca with friendly service, Moama Bakery is an easy one to put on the list.