Skelly discuses new cafe with board.
Update: Approved.
A former travel agency on South Street in Jamaica Plain could soon be reborn as a baby cafe - whose menu is focused on food and drinks suitable for babies and toddlers.
The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to grant a food-serving license to Tracy Skelly for her proposed Little Cocoa Bean, 114 South St. at McBride Street.
The cafe will feature a kid's play space as well as a seating area for the older set. Skelly told the board she would also run nutrition classes and other activities for families with young kids.
The toddler food on offer will be freshly made and locally sourced, she said.
The proposed hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Michael Reskind of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council strongly supported the idea. "A cafe catering to mothers and kids will be a wonderful addition to this space," he said.
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Comments
:-)
By eeka
Thu, 04/07/2022 - 12:34pm
I really appreciate you owning where your reaction came from and being open to incorporating additional information. And I totally get why you'd read the comments that way. I thought they were a bit much and also thought the point was really valid.
We definitely will! We use
By Tracy Skelly
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 3:01pm
We definitely will! We use the term “caregivers†:).
Such a neat idea
By Cranky
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 4:00pm
I hope your business is wildly successful. :^)
Thank you all so much for the
By Tracy Skelly
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 7:56pm
Thank you all so much for the well wishes and support. It means a lot. This has been a long and challenging journey but I would do it all again. Come and see us (likely opening at the end of May) if you’re in the area!
Good luck Tracy!
By HenryAlan 2.0
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 5:07pm
My kids are well past the age focus, but I would have loved such a place 15-20 years ago, and I'm sure you'll find plenty of current toddler caregivers eager to patronize your shop.
Awesome concept!
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 5:31pm
When mine were little there was a cafe in Cambridge that was all about good local food and a place where kids could kid while parents could hang out. I loved going there.
I hope this is successful. People need someplace better than the mass-market options to enjoy out of the house family time.
Awesome!
By eeka
Thu, 04/07/2022 - 11:30am
Great to hear from you. I wish you success and will stop by if we have smalls in our home again.
Is it open for ****** or just
By Notfromboston
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 12:21pm
Is it open for ****** or just lunch?
Phew
By Camberville
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 2:20pm
When I first read the headline, I pictured this to be like that failed Cat Cafe a few years back, but only with stray babies crawling around the cafe for the customers to pet and play with.
And that's why you always read the article.
Haha I did too!
By crcala
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 4:06pm
Haha I did too!
Or eat babies,
By HenryAlan 2.0
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 5:08pm
which is how I first interpreted the headline!
Awesome idea!
By Matt Frank
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 2:44pm
Awesome idea
Mommies or The Help
By Low Techie
Wed, 04/06/2022 - 5:57pm
Mid-afternoon around my JP environs, at least half of the strollers being pushed down the sidewalk or stationed in the park are being done by women who are clearly (trust me) nannies.
So sincere question here . . If a nanny takes a kid to any kind of establishment or gets them ice cream or something, does the nanny pay for it all and then get reimbursed somehow, or do they themselves just pay out of pocket?
In the case of the cafe, I wonder if a big chunk of the business hour toddlers would never be taken there because their nanny doesn't want the hassle and the paperwork and could just as easily kill the time with her fellow familiar nannies and their little clients over at the park.
For the record, my comment
By Whit
Thu, 04/07/2022 - 7:38am
For the record, my comment was about the peak JPness of the concept of a toddler cafe. The fury over who a mommy is or isn’t was just icing.
Unless they’re serving baby cocktails, I don’t see how this could possibly be a viable business plan. Also wondering, will they kick you out if you don’t have a baby? Asking for a friend.
I think it varies
By eeka
Thu, 04/07/2022 - 11:36am
When I was a nanny, the family just would ask me to email them at the end of the week my hours plus any funds spent on errands.
For my kids' sitters and 1:1s, I've always left cash or a debit card because I don't want people to worry about fronting the money. Apps make this easy too; I can pay for any needed Lyfts, pizza delivery, etc. for them without being there.
Kiddie Food
By EZ
Thu, 04/07/2022 - 10:15am
I once worked at a place that had a buffet and salad bar. You could always tell which plate was for the adult and which one was for the child. The adult plate had decent sized portions of two to four things. The child plate had two bites worth of almost everything on the buffet (and an effort was made to make sure nothing was touching)! I called it "toddler tapas".
We need this in JP. Good for her!
By bibliotequetress
Thu, 04/07/2022 - 3:48pm
To everyone talking/yelling on here about kids in restaurants, I'm going to weigh in from the point of view of a long time server: kids are only as bad as their parents, and occasionally better. They don't belong every place, but that's why we need more places like what Ms. Skelly wants to open.
Basically, the rules for kids should be the same as the rules for dogs: well behaved ones are welcome, so long as they sit and they don't smell too bad.
I love the idea of a cafe that will be equipped and prepared to handle kids. Granted, if I were still tending bar & waiting tables, there is not enough money on the planet to make me work here, but I still think this is great.
And, look, if you are a parent, please remember that restaurants that do not cater to kids aren't particularly safe for kids to be unwatched, even polite, calm kids. There's broken glass. Waiters carrying hot food who may not see someone 3 feet high. I've seen unattended kids run behind a bar, wander into a kitchen, and stand on top of a wobbly bar stool. And they can do some damage-- a brood of unwatched grade-schoolers destroyed the display in a bookstore cafe I worked in years ago.
Parents need a break and a change of scenery occasionally. Bringing kids out is a good way of teaching them to be respectful and to interact with adults, and most parents get that. But if just a few don't, it can feel like you're dining on a ride at Disneyland.
A most welcome perspective from
By MC Slim JB
Thu, 04/07/2022 - 4:09pm
the trenches: thank you!
Baby cafe!
By Mostly cloudy
Sun, 04/10/2022 - 5:10pm
When I read the headline I thought it was like a cat cafe, where you can hang out and play with the cats. I think I'll go anyway and see if they'll let me play with the babies, until they cry or need a diaper change.
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