The Pitstop Café, located at the top of
Mount Mee, on Mount Mee Road, is a very well-known little place amongst the folk of the
Moreton Bay Region and beyond. Situated on the Mount Mee tourist drive, the
Pitstop Café receives quite a lot of traffic from tourists, day travellers, bikies and locals alike. Being right at the top of Mount Mee, with perfect views of both the Moreton Bay and
Glass House Mountain regions, the Pitstop Café is in prime location and does very well for it.
Mount Mee is high up in the
D'Aguilar Range and is a popular tourist destination. The areas of Wamuran, D'Aguilar, Woodford and Mount Mee are home to vineyards, wineries, bed and breakfasts, cattle and sheep farms, grazing grounds, hardwood plantations and, of course, quaint old
Queenslanders with wraparound verandas. These suburbs are on the outskirts of the Moreton Bay Region, are steeped in history and have a 'country' feel about them. The roads leading through these areas, including the
D'Aguilar Highway, are frequented by motorcycle riders attracted by the long scenic routes.
The Pitstop Café, as described by its website, is "a craft shop that also has light refreshments and great coffee". Apart from local arts, crafts and collectables for sale, Pitstop Café is decorated with various car and motorcycle memorabilia. There are key rings,
dealership badges, old vehicle signs, posters, hubcaps, records, books and coffee tables made from recycled tyres and glass. The structure of the café also lends to the old motor shed atmosphere of the place, with wooden walls and a slanted tin roof.
The inside of Pitstop
Car memorabilia at Pitstop
If you're making a day of it, travelling to Mount Mee wouldn't be complete without visiting Pitstop Café. You can sit down, munch down and enjoy beautiful panoramic views of the Moreton Bay and Glass House Mountain regions. Pitstop Café has indoor and outdoor seating, but if you want full appreciation of the view while you eat, you're going to want to dine outside. The humble menu is located on the left, next to the counter as you enter the café, and is very much what you would expect from a small-town, highly frequented joint.
Outdoor seating
The menu is written up on a blackboard and contains breakfast, lunch and Sunday only options. The breakfast menu is served until 11am and contains items such as: raisin toast, bacon and egg sandwich, bacon and eggs on toast and a bacon, bean, cheesy melt. Toasted sandwiches can be purchased at any time of the day and a drinks menu is located behind counter.
For lunch you can order: pie and chips, sausage roll, a variety of different burgers with chips, chicken and bacon club roll, the Pitstop melt, a BLT sandwich and chips or just chips on their own (with chicken salt of course). On Sunday you can order a 'Big Brekky' for $12.50 that grants you bacon, egg, sausage, tomato, onion, baked beans and a piece of thick toast with butter. The prices for all items available are also displayed on the board.
The menu board
An old car, written on by many Pitstop visitors, that lives out the front of the cafe
Now to describe the view, which I've only touched on in the previous paragraphs. As previously mentioned the view at Pitstop Café is vast and encompasses a huge chunk of the Moreton Bay and Glass House Mountain regions. The great extent of the view is best described in this little extract from the Pitstop Café pamphlet that I picked up in Woodford:
"
The Pitstop location is one of the best views on the mountain with views up and down the Mount Pleasant Valley, past Dayboro and onwards to the North Pine Dam, all the way to Brisbane City in the distance. On a really clear day, you can see the sand dunes on Moreton and North Stradbroke Island" (Pitstop on Mount Mee pamphlet, 2012).
The view
The view from Pitstop Cafe, Mount Mee
Photos do not do these views justice: beautiful panoramic views of lush fields, bodies of water and tiny specks that can only be cows or cars. From Pitstop, everything looks green and blue. You can see mountains in the distance and the clouds seem a lot closer than usual. The atmosphere is wonderful. If on the way to Pitstop you stopped at the
Dahmongah Lookout Park, Mount Mee, and were amazed by the views there, these will astonish you. I myself thought the views from Dahmongah Lookout Park were beautiful, and they are, but the views from Pitstop Café exceed that.
Next weekend drop what you've got planned and come to Mount Mee. You won't regret it.
A bird house at Pitstop Cafe, Mount Mee
