Tracey Hope opens Bake on Dawn cafe on Campbell Street, Rockhampton

A new cafe has opened offering all homemade old-fashioned sweets, cakes and slices. Read how Tracey was inundated with the kindness of strangers in her journey in opening.

Tracey Hope with some cakes for her new cafe, Bake of Dawn on Campbell Street in Rockhampton City.

When Tracey Hope and her partner Wal moved to Rockhampton not long ago, she didn’t want to go back to the stress of her previous career as a paralegal in Victoria for more than 30 years.

“I thought I would do something different… baking has always been my happy place,” she said.

Tracey’s baking skills have all been self taught from Google and Youtube, and practice.

“I just had this dream, how good it would be doing something like this every day,” she said.

So they began looking into what was available and the businesses for sale but nothing was ticking the right boxes for what Tracey wanted, or the price.

“I said to Wal, why don’t we have a look at buying an old building and renovating it and making it what we want, then we own it if it doesn’t work,” she said.

They inspected a few buildings and came across 190 Campbell Street, near the Lifeline store.

“Council went through what we needed to do to bring it up to scratch, we didn’t have to lower ceilings or anything like that so here we are,” Tracey said.

The shop was Norm Milner Quality Meats for many years before Pie Guru was there for a short time around 2017 and Rocky Quality Meats butcher in recent years.

“It was in a pretty bad way… when we lifted the floor, there was blood everywhere and the cold room was pretty gross,” Tracey said.

“Then we started and I think with anything you start you don’t realise just how big it will be.

“I never thought I would see the end for a while there.”

It took five months of solid renovations to get it ready for opening, all with the kind help of a stranger.

Wal had met an ex-army retiree, Glen Saddler, at the pub and next thing they knew, he came to help with the renovations.

“He was here every day, nearly seven days a week. He wouldn’t take any money... without him I wouldn’t have opened when we did,” Tracey said holding back tears.

“I have a lot to thank for him and the journey we did together.”

Jack and Lorraine Rankine from Australian Epoxy Floors came to do the floors and this also led to another serendipitous moment.

“At the end Lorraine asked if I needed someone to give me a hand and I said yes… I was just so lucky to have her because she had her own cafe before and knew what to do,” Tracey said.

A few weeks later, a lovely lady by the name of Helen rocked up and asked if they were looking for workers.

“By this point we were struggling to keep up and I said yes, it’s only going to be washing dishes and all the stuff out the back,” Tracey said.

“Then we found out she can bake so she’s been baking as well, she does the lemon meringue, amazing melting moments.”

The cafe opened at the end of November and while the first week was quiet, word of mouth spread quickly and they were soon inundated.

“Just the support from the locals, next minute we were just, we had table bookings, we were full on Saturdays, full during the week,” Tracey said.

Bake of Dawn has a set menu of cakes and slices, with a focus on “golden oldies” like hummingbird cake and jelly slice and specials each week.

“Lorraine makes heavenly tart, and the response to that, especially with the oldies… as they walk in the door and see something they had as a child,” Tracey said.

“Chocolate ripple cake, we just make little mini ones and that’s been flying out.”

The cakes are all homemade and nothing is bought in, a mission of Tracey’s.

“We try to buy as much local produce as we can,” she said.

“I bought boxes and boxes of passionfruit from A2Z Farms (north of Yaamba and have regular market stalls), sliced and pulped them and put them in ice cube trays so when it’s the off season I still had fresh passion fruits, none of the tinned stuff,” Tracey said.

“Through Facebook I found an older couple in Marmor who had some lemon trees and whenever they were in town they dropped me off bags of lemons so I’ve been freezing the juice.”

The herb garden and fruit trees at the back of Bake of Dawn.

Wal has also made garden beds out the back and they have planted fruit trees and herbs, which will be used in the food.

Down the track, Tracey would like to have an outdoor dining area at the back and possibly even do smaller functions.

BAKE OF DAWN

• 190 Campbell Street, Rockhampton City (near the Lifeline and KFC)
• Reopen on Tuesday January 9
• Open Tuesday to Friday, 7.30am to 3pm and Saturday 7.30am to 12pm.