The Scone Shack: Cape Town's Road Trip-worthy Hidden Gem
If you like offbeat adventures, quirky attractions and random road trip stopovers then The Scone Shack is for you. If you're looking for the best scones in Cape Town apparently The Scone Shack would also be it ...except it's so far south of Cape Town that I'm not sure it really counts.
Located in the middle of nowhere, somewhere on the road to Cape Point, The Scone Shack is so unusual (in a charming way) that it's definitely worth going in search of it.
This quirky eatery is a must-visit for anyone seeking an experience that's both delicious and delightfully strange.
You can find it here:
The Menu
As the name implies, it serves mostly scones along with a few other items:
The scones are made onsite in a wood-fired oven. Probably not this one:
They have perfectly crispy crusts with nice soft fluffy centres. No stodgy scones here. Stodgy scones are the worst!
They are served with homemade jams also made onsite with seasonal fruits. Yup, if you're into homesteading, you might just lose your mind!
With something of a farmyard on the property, many of the ingredients are locally sourced.
Beyond the Scones:
When we had the very serious drought in Cape Town a few years ago, restaurants got quite strict about offering tap water to their patrons. Sometimes you had to pay for it (if you could order it at all) and it was often listed on your bill as "government water." To this day, when ordering water with any meal, to clarify that I want tap water and not bottled water, I often refer to it by its drought-coined euphemism of "government water", to which the waitrons crack a smile and my friends roll their eyes!
At the Scone Shack, however, I was denied "government water". No smile was cracked. I was told that they didn't have government water, only spring water. The waiter then unplugged a hose pipe from an outdoor tap to fill it with natural spring water for me, straight from the mountain. "Oh well, if I must!"
I also had lemonade. It was very tasty and refreshing after a long day of driving a petrol-fueled oven (my car doesn't have aircon) through the south of Cape Town to find a quirky eatery devoted to one type of carb.
The farmyard also came to check on us throughout our visit. I was even handed a "fowl swatter" in case they were a little too enthusiastic about the scone crumbs.
Being very "off-grid", it feels like you're going back in time when you visit this place. I was a bit surprised to hear that in 2024, they accept only cash and not credit cards. The bill comes rolled up and shoved in one of several really cute piggy banks, to match the live farm animals lounging in a pen that you walked past on your way in.
The Rustic Decor
The Scone Shack itself is rustic AF. The exterior is mostly made out of windows!
What's not a window is decorated with random clutter but in a way that sparks joy.
Minimalism is definitely not a thing here! The interior is home to a very small seating area and the kitchen area from where they serve people at various tables scattered around a large outdoor area that is part garden and part plant nursery. Where do they put people in the rainy season, you may ask? Well, from what I can tell, it seems to shut down for winter.
And what about the bathroom? Will it make my list of Cape Town's most memorable bathrooms?
Just to complete the whole rustic, in-the-middle-of-nowhere, quirky farmhouse vibe, yes, it was an outhouse / long drop. Anything else would have felt wrong.
(Why expect a credit card machine when they don't even have plumbing?)
If you're looking for decor tips, here are a few that I picked up on my visit:
- Some teapots are teapots, some are plant pots.
- One bathtub fishpond is not enough, you need at least two.
- If you're not sure if you're at the right place, look for a wheelbarrow or seven.
In Conclusion
On the whole, the Scone Shack is rustic, cute and whimsical AF and the scones are tasty. The whole experience is just that, an experience! It's worth taking a road trip to see this place and it's everything you hope a random road trip stopover in the middle of nowhere will be.
Opening Times:
While you're in the area:
- You can check out the SS Thomas T. Tucker Shipwreck at Cape Point,
- Stop in Simon's Town to snorkel with an octopus,
- Or buy some rocks at the Scratch Patch
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