People travel two hours to the Midlands for this bakery’s bombolonis

By Jeanne Calitz

Like many of us, Dave Goncalves started baking bread, specifically sourdough, during the pandemic. But unlike many of us, Dave and his wife, Lyndsay, turned this lockdown hobby into the thriving café and bakery that is Miche Bakehouse in the KZN Midlands village of Nottingham Road.

When talking to Dave about the origins of this business, now celebrated as an Eat Out Neighbourhood Gem, it’s clear that he started building a community right off the bat.

“A family friend was living in a retirement village at the time, and she mentioned how she was struggling to get to the shops. I started delivering bread to her, and then to her neighbours, and soon it became 15 to 20 loaves a week, and things kind of snowballed from there.”

In fact, things were going so well that Dave and Lyndsay opted to move to the Midlands and grow their business there. “We were in the coffee industry before and did lots of travelling and visited lots of cafés and shops, so we had good contacts there.”

Despite this, Dave remains surprised and delighted by the way the bakery has been received: the community of Nottingham Road has welcomed it with open arms. What started as an at-home bakery supplying sourdough loaves to restaurants and contacts quickly grew into something more. The demand was so great that “we needed a new premises, Lyndsay was getting tired of all these trays of bread in our kitchen,” laughs Dave. They met with a local who had a space, but she wanted more than a bakery, she wanted a front-of-house shop. “We decided to go for it,” says Dave. And so, Miche Bakehouse was born.

Watch: Sibs Mafu visits Miche Bakehouse to trying out all they have to offer…

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Today, this welcoming café and bakery does a roaring over-the-counter trade and is a popular destination for breakfast and brunch. People drive all the way from Ballito (two hours away) for their signature bomboloni (Italian doughnuts) on Fridays and Saturdays, and Dave reckons they sell around 30 to 40kg of their delicious brownies every week.

It’s clear that Dave and Lyndsay are having a blast with Miche, and the location and the people have a lot to do with it. “The great thing about being in a small town is that you can make mistakes without failing. I think in places like Cape Town or Jozi, you have to be brilliant right from the start. Here, people understand that you’re learning, you’re growing a business.”

Still, Dave is humbled by the recognition Miche has received in being nominated as a Neighbourhood Gem. “We love being part of this community. We really pushed to be local; we weren’t focused on the tourists. We’ve learnt our customers’ names, and we’ve made great friends here. I love that when regulars come in, the barista is already making a start on their coffee, the chef knows what kind of sandwich they’re going to order. You can sit down and have a chat with them. You can’t put a price on that.”