Babe Ruth’s Favorite Backwoods Bar, the Wayside Inn, for Sale and Closing This Weekend
The legendary watering hole closes its doors this weekend. Locals hope it can be revived.
For more than 150 years, the Taconic Wayside Inn, now for sale in Copake Falls, has stood at the edge of the Taconic State Park, offering weary travelers, locals, and the occasional baseball legend a place to eat, drink, and gather. Once a boarding house for workers at the Copake Iron Works, the inn got its liquor license in 1857 and went on to become the center of small-town life, hosting weddings, reunions, retirement parties, and long drinking sessions with Babe Ruth.
“It had been Babe Ruth's favorite watering hole,” says Peter Cipkowski, whose parents owned the place. His brother Joe Cipkowski owns it now but is eager to move on at the end of the month. “(Ruth) used to hunt up in the mountains in Mount Washington, Massachusetts, and do his drinking at the bar.
A Rough-Edged Community Hub
The Wayside has long been more than just a roadside tavern. “It was very much a gateway to Bash Bish Falls and eventually the Taconic State Park,” Peter continues. “And that became a destination for people to cool off in the summer.”
His parents bought the inn in the early 1970s and ran it as a restaurant and tavern that welcomed local musicians, holiday parties, and countless family milestones. They stopped taking boarders but the family occupied the living spaces and they’re still kept up if a new owner wants to reinvigorate the inn as a hotel again.
When Joe took over the business in 2005 with his late wife, Diane, he found himself unexpectedly at the center of the community. “I don't know if I ever liked running the place,” he admits with a laugh infused with pathos.
Joe stayed mostly in the kitchen while Diane ran the bar, a division of labor that suited their temperaments. “I really don't have the personality for this,” he said. “My wife was a big personality girl. She was the personality.”
Despite Joe’s aversion to socializing, the inn thrived for decades. “It's remarkable how this little town has supported this place all through the years,” he acknowledges, noting that before the pandemic they threw at least a party a week.”
Two Brothers on Different Paths
The Cipkowski brothers’ lives diverged after high school. Joe went to Mississippi and raised a family before coming back to take over the business from his father. After the inn sells, Joe's got no concrete plan. “I’m not going to retire. I just want to get away from this,” he says of his decision to finally close the bar. “I kind of want to hit the road for a little while.”
He plans to travel with his wife’s loyal little half-Chihuahua, half-Pug, Pumper, in his camper and spend more time in Mississippi, where his kids and much of his extended family live.
Peter left after high school too but now he’s bi-costal, maintaining a house not far from the Wayside and one in Los Angeles. “I graduated from Taconic Hills and got the hell out of there, you know, as quickly as I could,” he says with a laugh.
After a career in publishing, he is now a professor of literature at UCLA and president of the Willa Cather Foundation. His husband, Bill Kramer, serves as CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Yet even from Los Angeles, Peter remains connected to the old inn. “We love the building, and we'd love for someone to fall in love with it the way that my parents did.”
Closing Weekend
Now, the inn’s days are numbered. Joe has one last event, a high school reunion, before he shutters the doors for good on September 28, when its 168-year old liquor license expires.
The property is for sale, listed through Timberland Properties, and Joe’s hope is simple: “I'd like to see somebody just keep it going as a bar and restaurant.”
It may not be the polished destination it once was, but that, too, is part of its charm. “It needs some maintenance,” Peter admits. “But it’s got some of that old charm.”
