Example design by Galix Studios · not a real business

Back to Galix

Sourdough bakery & café · South Townsville

Slow bread for a hot town.

Naturally leavened loaves, laminated pastry and properly pulled coffee from a narrow shopfront on Palmer Street. Every loaf takes forty-five hours. The good ones are gone by ten.

Order Saturday loaves See the menu
Address
41 Palmer Street, South Townsville
Hours
Tue–Sun, 6am–2pm
Since
2014, with Gladys

We bake about 180 loaves every Saturday from one starter, one stone deck oven and a timetable that starts on Thursday morning. Nothing is rushed, and nothing is wasted: yesterday's bread becomes tomorrow's French toast.

  • 45 hrsfrom starter to shelf
  • ~180loaves every Saturday
  • 2014the year Gladys, our starter, was born

The bake

Three days, forty-five hours, one loaf.

Sourdough isn't a recipe so much as a timetable. Townsville makes it harder: in the wet season the humidity sits near 80%, so we cut the water back by three percent and let the coolroom do the patient work.

  1. A glass jar of bubbling sourdough starter behind a freshly baked, scored loaf on a wooden board

    01

    Day 1 · Thursday, 9am

    Wake the starter

    Gladys has lived in our coolroom since March 2014. She gets fed rye flour and filtered water at 26°C, twice, twelve hours apart. By nine at night she's doubled, domed and smells like green apples. That's the levain.

  2. A baker's floured hands pressing and shaping dough on a dusted bench

    02

    Day 2 · Friday, 5am

    Mix, fold, shape, sleep

    Flour stone-milled on the Darling Downs, water, levain and Murray River salt. Four rounds of stretch-and-folds, forty-five minutes apart, then a slow bulk rise. Every loaf is shaped by hand and tucked into a cane banneton. At 2pm they go into the coolroom at 4°C. Cold slows the yeast and lets the bacteria build flavour. That tang is time, not vinegar.

  3. Round, golden sourdough loaves cooling on a wire rack in the bakery

    03

    Day 3 · Saturday, 3am

    Score and bake

    One stroke of the lame per loaf, then forty minutes on the stone deck at 250°C with a hit of steam. They cool on the racks by the front window. If you're early you'll hear it: the crust crackles as it cools. We call it singing. Doors open at six.

A sourdough loaf cut in half, showing an open, glossy crumb and a dark, blistered crust

Inside the Country White

What forty-five hours looks like.

The ear
One stroke of the blade, lifted by oven spring.
Open, glossy crumb
78% water and a long, cold proof.
Crackling crust
Forty minutes on stone at 250°C, baked dark on purpose.

Order ahead

Saturday loaves, held with your name on them.

We bake about 180 loaves on a Saturday and they're usually gone by ten. Order by Thursday 2pm and we'll keep yours on the back rack until 10am. Pay at the counter.

Your loaves
Country White $11.50
Fern Rye $13.00
Olive & Rosemary $14.00
Fruit & Fennel $14.50
Spelt & Honey $13.50
Pick up

Inside a rustic bakery: loaves and pastries on timber shelves under warm pendant lights, morning light from the window

Visit

Palmer Street, across the creek.

Shop 3, 41 Palmer Street
South Townsville QLD 4810

0491 570 157
hello@example.com

Opening hours
MondayClosed (Gladys's day off)
Tuesday – Friday6am – 2pm
Saturday6am – 2pm, loaves till sold out
Sunday6am – 2pm

Street parking out front, a bike rack by the fern, and water bowls for dogs at the footpath tables. A five-minute walk over the Victoria Bridge from Flinders Street.

Lately, on the bench.

@fernandflour.tsv

  • Close-up of croissants with crisp, golden layers
    Lamination check: 27 layers, no tears. 412 likes
  • Milk being poured into a flat white
    Hermit Park's new seasonal: stone fruit, cocoa. 298 likes
  • The open crumb of a halved sourdough loaf
    You asked for a crumb shot. Here's the Country White. 1,204 likes
  • Loaves cooling on the rack
    Saturday, 6.02am. The racks before the rush. 955 likes
  • The starter jar beside a finished loaf
    Gladys turns twelve this March. She's had more feeds than you. 1,890 likes
  • Avocado on toasted sourdough
    Avo on rye, the way Townsville likes it. 877 likes
  • The shelves inside the bakery under warm lights
    5.40am. Lights on, shelves filling. 631 likes
  • Hands shaping dough on a floured bench
    Friday, shaping day. 180 of these by lunch. 1,422 likes