Best Coffee Between Busselton and Augusta

I'm not a coffee snob. But I've had a lot of coffee between Busselton and Augusta. Four decades of it now.

Photo: Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The coast between Busselton and Augusta is about two hours of driving end to end, and somewhere in those two hours every village has a cafe. Most are fine. A few are good. A handful I'd actually drive out of my way for. This is a list of the ones I'd send a visitor to, sorted by where you are, not by ranking, because the best coffee is the one nearest you when you want one.

I'll start north and work south.

The Goose on the foreshore. The view's the headline (straight onto Geographe Bay with the jetty off to one side), but the coffee holds up. Decent breakfast menu. They do takeaway if you want to walk it down to the water.

For a quieter morning if you're staying in Busselton, Yahava KoffeeWorks has a roastery a few minutes out of town toward Vasse. They roast on site. The cafe attached sits off the main road, which keeps it from getting overrun in summer.

Half a dozen places along Naturaliste Terrace do good coffee. The ones I'd send people to:

Lamonts Smiths Beach is technically a Yallingup address but I'm putting it under Dunsborough because that's where most people stay. The cafe sits on the headland above Smiths Beach and the view is the entire reason to go. Coffee is good, food is better, but it's the morning light over the bay that earns it the spot. Sit outside if you can.

Photo: David Stanley, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Dunsborough Bakery for something fast. Pastries are honest, coffee is good enough, queue moves quickly. I'll grab a flat white here if I'm passing through.

Goosebumps Cafe has a small loyal following. Tucked off the main strip. Worth finding.

This is where I live, so this section's the shortest. There's a cluster around Caves Road and a few near the beach, but Yallingup is small. You're not going to spend an hour finding a coffee here. There are three or four options and they're all within walking distance of each other.

The Yallingup General Store does a flat white that does the job. Tables outside under the trees. It's the closest thing the village has to a community hub and you'll often run into people you know.

Three minutes from the village on Blythe Rd, the Carbunup store is where I stop if I'm heading north on the highway. Petrol station coffee in theory; better than that in practice. Their vanilla slice is the real reason to stop. The store is also the landmark for finding the workshop, which sits about three minutes down Blythe Rd from there.

Stop at the Carbunup store for coffee and the workshop is three minutes further. Good coffee first, then come and look at what's being made. That's a morning.

A small town ten minutes north of Margaret River, with cows scattered along the main street as a town joke that has gone on for years. Margaret River Roasting Co. is here, the actual roastery. They've been doing this for a long time. The cafe is in the same building. Drink one coffee in the region, drink one here, because the beans you'll get at most other cafes in the South West are theirs. The wider things to do in Cowaramup covers the brewery and the bakery if you've got more time.

Watching them roast through the back window is something. Same way the workshop window at the gallery works: process visible, no mystery.

The town itself has the most options and, predictably, the most variation in quality.

Sidekick on Bussell Hwy is the one I'd send people to first. Good food, good coffee, mostly local crowd, opens early. They've been around long enough to be doing it properly.

The Settlers Tavern kitchen does an underrated breakfast and the coffee is competent. The room is dim and old-fashioned which I like.

Margaret River Bakery is the workhorse: pastries, sandwiches, a flat white you can rely on. It's not destination coffee. It's everyday coffee. Both have a place.

Witchcliffe is a fifteen-minute drive south of Margaret River and most people pass straight through. Don't. The Common is here and the food is honestly the most interesting between Busselton and Augusta. Coffee is part of a wider offering. They're doing breakfasts and lunches with real care, with produce mostly grown within a few kilometres. If I'm driving a visitor south I'll often plan the morning to land here.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Augusta is the end of the road. Where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet at Cape Leeuwin. The coffee scene reflects the size of the town: small, no surprises, but a couple of places get it right.

The Colourpatch Cafe sits on the river mouth with a view that justifies the slightly longer wait. The food is fish-and-chips simple but well done. The Augusta Bakery and Cafe is the everyday option: locals' choice, no fuss.

Driven all the way down here for the day? Walk to the lighthouse after coffee. That's the proper Augusta morning.

Most cafes in this region get their beans from one of three or four local roasters. Yahava in Vasse, Margaret River Roasting Co. in Cowaramup, and a few others. So the coffee you drink in Yallingup might be roasted twenty minutes from where you're drinking it. That's part of why even the average cafes here do a reasonable job: the supply chain is short.

What separates the places I'd actually recommend is the room, the people, the view, and whether the barista cares. Coffee is coffee. The morning around it is everything else.

Start at Lamonts Smiths Beach with the sun coming up. Drink your coffee on the deck. Then drive ten minutes back to Blythe Rd and come and look at the workshop. After that, head south through Caves Road, stop at Margaret River Roasting Co. in Cowaramup for a second cup, and you're set up for whatever the day holds.

a foodie weekend in Yallingup for the rest of the day's eating. a Dunsborough day from Yallingup to stay north instead.

Photo: David Stanley, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

That's the list. None of them will change your life. But three of them will start the day right, which is all coffee really has to do.

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