At the end of a driveway in Blackheath, NSW, every Sunday customers pick up homemade cookies, caramel slices, or brownies from a stand, place their money in a cash box, and walk away without supervision.
Mylah, Gabe and their daughter at Braeside Bakery. Photo supplied by Mylah Ashby
For Mylah Leigh Ashby, who runs this roadside store called Braeside Bakery, the system relies trusting people to do the right thing.
So far, they have.
“People will stand there for half an hour figuring it out,” Mylah said. “People come back with five cents if they didn’t have the right money.”
Mylah started the bakery after seeing American-style farm stands online while she was pregnant. At the time, she was baking often, and her partner Gabe, a carpenter, was eating most of the results.
“I’m like, well, I’m not going to stop baking. You should build me a bakery,” she said.
Using scrap materials, he built the small roadside stand which became Mylah’s creative outlet during early motherhood.
“You definitely do need time to just exist as you and not as a mum,” she said.
The bakery runs on an honesty system. Customers can leave cash in a box drilled into the side of the stand or pay by bank transfer using laminated instructions. Mylah said she has not noticed any theft.
“I think when you give people the chance to be honest, they are,” she said. “People don’t give people the chance very often.”
That trust is part of what keeps roadside stalls alive, according to James Pollock, founder of The Roadside Stalls Australia, an online directory for honesty boxes and roadside stalls across Australia.
James and his partner Sophie started the directory after noticing there was no central place to find them, and it quickly became a wider platform for stallholders and visitors.
“We like roadside stalls and honesty boxes and there wasn’t anybody providing a directory of them,” he said.
One of James’ favourite stalls is tucked behind a house in northern NSW, where customers drive past chickens and barking dogs before finding produce hidden behind hessian.
“It just sort of personifies that it’s all about trust,” he said.
Use the StoryMap above (created by Trinity Camilleri using KnightLab) to explore some of Australia’s roadside stalls.
James noted honesty-box businesses appear to be growing, but they are also changing. What once might have been excess fruit or vegetables placed at the front of a property has, in some cases, become a more organised small business model. Across Australia, stalls sell flowers, plants, eggs, jams, cakes, crafts and homemade produce, often supported by social media and digital payments.
“They’re going pro,” he said. “They’ve got their social media, they’re making their own produce, like cakes and crafts and things, rather than just putting their excess fruit on the stall.”
StoryMap of roadside stalls across Australia made by Trinity Camilleri using KnightLab
Digital payment systems are also becoming more common. James said some stallholders now use PayID or QR codes because customers do not always carry cash and cash boxes can be targeted. Pay By QR, a sponsor of The Roadside Stalls Australia, says it supports unmanned roadside and farmgate stalls by offering QR-code payments as cash becomes less common.
“Theft is a problem,” he said. “People do steal money and the honesty boxes themselves.”
But regulation may be one of the bigger challenges for stallholders wanting to grow. James said roadside stalls often need to consider council approval, especially where parking and road safety are involved.
“The only thing that might stop it is people negotiating with their local council,” James said. “They are running businesses out of their home.”
Food safety adds another layer to the honesty system, with trust extending to how goods are stored, labelled and handled.
According to Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), home-based food businesses must ensure their premises are “designed and fitted out to handle food safely and avoid contamination”, regardless of the size of the business or how often food is sold.
For Mylah, the bakery’s success has been driven by community and social media. Her Instagram has grown to 27,000 followers, but she explained the platform is not about attracting customers.
“I don’t need more people to come to the bakery because it sells out,” she said.
Instead, she hopes the account shows others they can start something similar.
“It’s showing other people that they can do it,” she said. “People love little community things like that. It makes a town feel pretty cool.”
The business can also be financially worthwhile, with Mylah earning $700 on some Sundays after spending $120 on ingredients and around three hours baking.
But money was never the main reason for starting.
“I never started it because I wanted to make money,” she said. “That is obviously a bonus and I’m very grateful for that.”
James said that is part of the appeal of honesty-box culture. Customers like fresher products, cheaper prices and the chance to give money directly to producers instead of large retailers.
“There’s something about an honesty system that’s reaffirming,” he said. “Old-fashioned values of honesty still prevail.”
Mylah hopes to eventually open an online store and possibly a physical bakery, but she does not want the roadside stand to lose what made it meaningful.
For now, the cash box stays, bank details remain laminated, and the treats keep selling.
