Taihape Bakery & Cafe is a bakery and cafe at 79 Hautapu Street, Taihape, in the Rangitikei district, with a Google rating of 3.2 from 56 reviews. It sits on the main street that State Highway 1 follows through town.
A small-town bakery-cafe lives by its rhythm: ovens fire early, the cabinet is fullest mid-morning, and the popular lines — pies, fresh bread, filled rolls — thin out as the day wears on. Regulars time their visits to the baking rather than the clock, and judge a country bakery by its pie first. Coffee matters as much as the food, since these cafes double as the town's meeting table, where locals and passing travellers queue side by side and the seats fill up by mid-morning.
For a pie, a slice or a flat white in the middle of Rangitikei, it sits in a handy spot on Hautapu Street as the highway passes through.