All meetings in Truro are remote only. Go to truro-ma.gov and click on the meeting you want to watch. The agenda includes instructions on how to join.
Thursday, Oct. 28
- Climate Action Committee, 10:30 a.m.
Monday, Nov. 1
- Conservation Commission, 5 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 2
- Board of Health, 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 3
- Planning Board, 5 p.m.
Conversation Starters
In Search of Babe’s
The select board delayed its annual renewal of the seasonal common victualer license for Babe’s Restaurant & Bakery because the manager, Terence Johnson, could not attend the hearing on Oct. 26.
They put off the renewal hearing for two weeks. But before doing so, board members raised questions about whether a restaurant that is open only one weekend or two per year qualifies as a seasonal business.
Barbara Carboni, the town planner, said there is no case law defining exactly what hours a place must be open for it to qualify as a seasonal business.
Brief weekend openings are a familiar pattern for this North Truro restaurant.
The original Babe’s Bakery opened in 1945. Rene Boespflug ran it as a French bistro from 1966 through the 1970s. Since then, his daughter, Claudia Boespflug, has had trouble finding staff that meet her high standards, she said by phone after the Oct. 26 board meeting. Excepting a five-year period that ended in 2011, the restaurant has been mostly closed.
Boespflug explained that her general strategy has been to open the restaurant for a brief time — five weekends last year — just to keep the business license valid, she said.
When Boespflug opens, she orders pastries from Pain D’Avignon in Hyannis and gives them all away with free coffee. Any donations, she said, she gives to Wild Care, a nonprofit that rescues wild animals. She said she donated over $1,000 last year.
She has no desire to sell, Boespflug said, adding that she wants to keep her options open about the restaurant. She lives in a cottage on the 63 Shore Road property from July through October.
She said the select board got almost every fact wrong during the Oct. 26 meeting.
She also said she did not know one had to attend the meeting to get the license.
Town Manager Darrin Tangeman, however, said emails show that Boespflug had been properly notified. In two weeks, he added, she will get another chance. —K.C. Myers
