Bestsellers: The buttie that keeps bringing punters back to this Mercer cafe

Wednesday, 17 June 2026

Pōkeno Bacon Cafe owner Jill Sowden with the bacon buttie bestseller.

Pōkeno Bacon Cafe, State Highway 1, Mercer

One punter first found the Pōkeno Bacon Cafe on a toilet stop, another’s been making fortnightly visits for decades.

And it’s not just the customers who stick around at the Mercer cafe.

Owner Jill Sowden says “it was offered to me because I’ve been here for so long”.

She’s worked on the SH1 eatery for 23 years, many as manager, and took over four years ago.

And rising fuel prices don’t seem to have stopped people coming in so far, she said.

The bacon on a slice of thick, white bread.

“We were flat tack in the morning and then we go through a quiet spell. Mondays and Tuesdays are slowed down slightly.”

Chris Bath made his first trip to the cafe on a toilet stop.

He ordered the bestseller - a bacon buttie - but wanted the bacon extra crispy.

Henare Coe has been coming to the Pōkeno Bacon Cafe for over 40 years.

Henare Coe has been coming to the cafe for a bacon buttie once a month for more than 40 years.

Coe grew up in Matauri Bay in the Bay of Islands and moved to Meremere in 1971. He lived there until 1988, when the town’s power station closed and he took redundancy.

“I looked around and I thought, I’ve got five sons. What are they going to do here in Meremere?

“They’re not going to be potato pickers. So we moved to Queensland.”

The cafe is on State Highway 1 at Mercer.

After 12 years running a business across the ditch he moved back in 2000 and has called the area home ever since.

A bacon-lover, Coe said the buttie has always been his order.

He also gets an iced coffee and reads the Waikato Times - there was a copy on his table.

The bacon cooking on the grill at Pōkeno Bacon Cafe.

Cafe owner Sowden said people should try their bacon because it’s “all homegrown, cured and free range”.

People can also buy the Pōkeno bacon retail but “they can’t keep it in the fridges long enough” and are thinking about getting a bigger one.

Tell us about the bestseller:

It’s a bacon buttie. A hot sandwich full of bacon, served on a thick slice of bread and it just melts into the butter.

Why is it so appealing?

I think that it's the size of the sandwich. It’s also made with love.

Who buys it?

Everybody, including a lot of the older customers.

How much?

$16.

What’s your favourite item on the menu?

I love the bacon buttie sandwich as well but I try not to have it too much.