Roadside stalls are booming, with 45,000 members in one group alone

Roadside stalls are booming in the Adelaide Hills, attracting 45,000 members on social media Mon 1 Jun 2026 at 6:24am In short: Roadside stalls have become hugely popular in South Australia's Adelaide Hills. Owners say having a roadside stall has helped to grow their small businesses, or get them started. What's next? A social media group has attracted 45,000 members and is continuing to grow. Like many people in the pandemic, Elise McCallum started baking sourdough. But she never thought she would have a booming business selling it on the side of the road. Nestled away in the winding streets of Cudlee Creek in South Australia's Adelaide Hills sits a stall stocked with freshly baked loaves. "I remember my first loaf. I was watching from the window, thinking, 'No-one's going to buy it',"she said. "But I sold one loaf, and then one loaf turned into 10 loaves. "Now, we stock a fair few loaves every weekend." The stall is one among more than 100 tucked away in the Adelaide Hills and the broader outer Adelaide region, and the movement is gaining attention. A Facebook group dedicated to roadside stalls in the area has more than 45,000 members, with stallholders posting details of the products they sell, and people seeking out places to visit. Diligent users have also created an interactive online map, detailing where stalls are, what they sell and other helpful information. Ms McCallum said it was great to see so many roadside stalls popping up, and said the group was helpful for her business. "You get one person comment about a certain product, and then you get 10 more people coming to get that product," she said. Business blooming About 30 kilometres away, as the crow flies, is Natasha Trimper's stall, which is stocked with locally grown fresh flowers in a homely street in Mount Barker. Ms Trimper agreed that she loved seeing more roadside stalls popping up around the region. She started selling flowers out of her garage, and decided to put out some bunches in a stall near her home. From there, the business bloomed. "Since the stand has been out, and putting ourselves on Google Maps … we get a lot more traffic with people just driving past," she said. "It gives you a nice warm feeling. "I want everyone to be happy with the flowers, I want everyone to have flowers and not have to spend a fortune just so they can celebrate a birthday or an event or just so they can have flowers in the kitchen." She said she had managed to keep the costs down by growing most of her own flowers, and by tidying neighbours' gardens and using trimmings in the bunches. "I love making these bunches so everyone can enjoy [them]," she said. For both of the mothers, what started as a side hustle has become so much more. Ms McCallum started selling bread during maternity leave, and now works for herself. "I was meant to be going back to work, and then gave myself a target to try to reach," she said. "I hit that target, then doubled that target, and thought, 'Why not just stay home doing something I love?'" Many of the stalls rely on an honour system, with some using security cameras to keep an eye on things. For others, the set-up is a bit more old-fashioned and they rely on trust. "It's a very trusting kind of community,"Ms Trimper said. "We've even had neighbours say it's really nice that you don't have the cameras up there." Ms McCallum said the overwhelming majority of people were well behaved. "If people are going to steal, they're going to steal from a big store, or someone that's manning a store," she said. "Most people are pretty good."