Offbeat Eats

In a converted railroad depot in Bethel, Vermont, right next to Cockadoodle Pizza Café sits one of central Vermont’s more interesting little spots, Babes Bar. It’s a bit of a rarity for the area, since it’s one of the few freestanding bars out there (versus, say, nearby Crossroads Bar and Grill or Worthy Burger, which are indeed “bars”, but with substantial food menus as well. Opened by a married couple, Jesse Plotsky and Owen Daniel-McCarter, who moved to Vermont from Chicago a few years ago to move to the simpler life in Vermont, Babes is an interesting place. If there’s a single word that describes Babes, it is “welcoming”. This is a bar for locals. This is a bar for groups riding through. This is a bar for leaf-peeping tourists. And it’s a queer-owned bar that goes out of its way to be welcoming and inclusive to the LBGTQ community as well.

I really like wandering around the back roads of Vermont, and while a lot of the little towns in central Vermont (especially along Route 100) seem to have a lot of neat restaurants, I unfortunately don’t often seem to be driving through those parts of the state when we’re looking for food. But a recent trip to a beer festival in Killington, VT finally gave us a chance to check out one of the places that’s been on our hit list: Creek House Diner in Bethel, VT.