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On a windy, grey, weekday afternoon, a line of people at Engadine sandwich shop Loaf wait to, mostly, say three words: “The Schnitty, please.”

Young, old, locals or blow-ins, they scan Loaf’s menu of sandwiches, wraps, filled rolls, jaffles and salads, even the homemade carrot cake on the counter, and rest their eyes on the five month-old shop’s most popular item.

They’d win with The Hambo sandwich featuring fat slabs of shaved ham, sweet, glazey caramelised carrot, strong cheddar, festoons of red cabbage, juicy pickles, truffle mayonnaise, lettuce and seeded mustard.

The Beefed Up, a heady architectural wonder heaving with fall-apart slow-cooked beef, cheddar, pickles and hot chips amid greens, truffle mayonnaise and salsa verde, is a majestic meat buffet requiring a short lie-down afterwards.

There’s the Mushie Trip jaffle (a luxurious meeting of truffle mushrooms, feta, sweet onion, spinach and cheddar), the Hangover Cure roll (oozy egg, hash brown, bacon, relish) and the Tuna Fish, creamy tuna mix with thinly sliced apple.

I’d even vote the Deluxe Veggie sandwich (on Loaf’s wide soft brown bread), with its cavalcade of red cabbage, shredded carrot, sliced cucumber, beetroot slices, bean sprouts, lettuce and wholegrain mustard (add fried halloumi and candied chilli) as the best sandwich.

But, it’s the Schnitty, cushioned by thick, white high-top bread slices, that pulls the crowds. It’s a sandwich you could use as a pillow. Good height, utter softness and a hearty interior. Crispy chicken schnitzel crispiness giving way to tender flesh, with herby mayonnaise, buoyant folds of mixed lettuce and more caramelised carrot.

I know these are only sandwiches. But they’re packed munificently with ace ingredients and framed in good bread from Omoore Delight Bakery six minutes away in the Engadine Arcade. They cost $16 (on average) and one could feed two hungry people.

Loaf in Engadine, sister to a Cronulla shop founded in 2015, opened in August. Run and co-owned by Annaleigh Sturmann, Chantel Toutounji and Kirsty Wirth, it sits in a corner building in the suburb’s shopping strip.

There are 20 seats outside and 16 inside, the latter edged by natural light-pink tiling, olive chairs, cabinets of house juices and cakes and shelves of White Horse coffee and Loaf’s jars of candied chilli and chilli oil.

Sandwiches aside, Loaf’s other drawcard is its staff. No limp hellos here. Customers receive proper cheer and wide smiles at the counter.

Conversations flow. Even our receipt comes with happy exclamation marks.

Sturmann is full of praise for staff at Engadine and Cronulla. “They’re very important to us,” she says. “Our manager in Cronulla started working for us when she was 13 and she’s 20 now.”

Sturmann, Wirth and Toutounji also strive for a community feel. Mornings are busy with commuters getting sandwiches for work, before locals, holiday traffic and tradies arrive for lunch.

Loaf at Cronulla has a customer who has come every day for 10 years. “He lives by himself and we’ll be the first person that he talks to every day,” Sturmann says. “Always a large flat white, veggie combo with relish, and he’ll come back for lunch and get a schnitty on brown bread. If he changes anything, I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’.”

Sturmann, who lives in Engadine, cofounded Loaf in Cronulla when she was 25 and opened the latest shop seven months after the birth of her second child, says franchises are a possibility, including in the UK.

“I never thought I’d open a cafe,” she says. “No offence to people who have it as their dream, but it definitely wasn’t mine.

“It blows my mind the amount of work it takes to run a sandwich shop. For every small business, to just keep afloat with orders, staff, bills.

“But I love it. I love the people, I love the interactions. I love seeing people’s kids grow up. You create a little world, a little family. We’re going have a big party for our 10-year birthday coming up, and invite everyone.”