When Maddy Birch and Claudia Allen met over 12 years ago at the start of their hospitality careers, they already knew they wanted to open their own venue one day.

Now, Jane & Mae has arrived on Maitland’s High Street, serving up its scrumptious pastries, sandwiches, and coffee.

Regulars at Birch & Coffee Co at The Levee will be familiar with Maddy and Claudia, who also run this coffee kiosk in The Hatch shipping container.

While they love it, the one-by-one metre kitchen can get a little small at times!

“It’s nice to have our own space now – air conditioning, a real kitchen, our own fit-out,” Maddy said.

It wasn’t all easy however – it took a while before the pair landed on the right space for Jane & Mae.

“We drove past this building. It was a little takeaway shop before, then we’d both driven past, and Maddy stopped and called me and asked if I’d seen the for lease sign, and I was like ‘Yes!’ We just sort of chased it. We’d been looking around for a while. Third time lucky,” Claudia said.

“The building used to be a bakery about 100 years ago apparently, so there's still a chimney in the middle of the building and it needed a bit of love. It needed a facelift, so we gave it one,” Maddy said.

Officially opening on November 7, 2023, Jane & Mae has been a hit with locals. With schools and the council administration building nearby, there’s plenty of hungry passersby.

“It’s been great, everyone’s received us so well down this end of town.”

The array of pastries, tarts, and cakes on offer, made fresh each morning, is enough to have you planning a return visit before you’ve even walked out with your treat.

We don’t blame you if you have trouble deciding. Everything looks too pretty to eat – making her creations look immaculate is one of pastry chef Claudia’s favourite parts of the job.

When we visit, some of the goodies on offer include a lemon meringue tart with basil gel, a baked cheesecake topped with seasonal fruit, and a spiced mango meringue. 

The girls’ menu highlight is the galette, a cream cheese pastry filled with custard and stone fruit which Maddy calls her “favourite child,” and we can certainly see why. 

Don’t expect the exact same pastries on offer each time you visit, however, because Maddy and Claudia focus on seasonality.

“We use what’s in season, and we’ll always continue to do that, as well as using as much local produce as we can get.”

Jane & Mae also offers house-made pickles and preserves, like a blood orange marmalade and bread and butter pickles, which also help them use seasonal produce over the course of the year. 

The coffee is just as quality as the food offering, with the cafe pouring Floozy Coffee, and the blends rotating every so often depending on what Floozy can source seasonally.

“They have the same business and personal ethos and principles as us, so we work well together.”

Whether you take your coffee and pastry at Jane & Mae’s “very European” stand-up espresso bench or venture out into Maitland’s streets, you’re guaranteed to leave wanting more.