Wimpy Promised to Pay Tuesday. Wimpy's Is Charging 15 Cents

At 752 Main St. in Osterville, a hamburger is about to cost 15 cents, as long as you eat it sitting down.

That's the Tuesday, Oct. 6 farewell at Wimpy's, the Cape Cod Times reported last Thursday, when some of the original menu items roll back to their 1938 prices. Four days later, on Saturday, Oct. 10, Wimpy's serves its last day in Osterville. The name, and a good deal of what's behind it, is moving to Hyannis.

A going-away party with 1938 prices makes a certain sense. A going-away party on a Tuesday is a little stranger, and the Tuesday turns out to have two explanations. One of them is 94 years old.

Raymond and Winnie Hostetter opened Wimpy's in 1938. The restaurant's own history describes it as "a small hamburger counter" to start, with the seafood and takeout market coming later, as Osterville grew and the building gained additions. Today it lists more than 200 seats.

A 2005 obituary for the founders' son, Vincent Hostetter, preserved from the Boston Globe, is more specific still. It describes the original as a six-stool hamburger stand opened to serve lunch, and says Vincent started working there at 8. Eventually, the obituary said, you could get anything from filet mignon to seafood 362 days a year.

In 2017, Adam Hostetter and his business partner Jeff Lindsey bought the business, the Times reported, which put a Hostetter back at the counter his grandparents opened. Adam's résumé is not the usual one for a chowder house. He competed for the U.S. in snowboard giant slalom at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. He and his partners also run Fancy's Market in Osterville and The Break on Hyannis Harbor, so the move ahead is less a leap than a shorter commute to one of the other jobs.

The rollback centers on the hamburger: 15 cents, dine-in only. The Times said "some" original items get 1938 prices, and Barnstable Patch confirmed the rollback on Monday, but neither story listed the rest of the rollback menu or the party's hours. Those hadn't been posted when we checked. The restaurant's regular hours, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily on its website, aren't the party schedule, so call before you plan around them.

The party doubles as a fundraiser for a local environmental nonprofit, according to the Times. We're confirming the group's exact name with the restaurant before we print it.

As for the day of the week, Hostetter told the Times that Tuesday was picked with Cape residents and longtime supporters in mind. That's the first explanation, and it's a good one.

The second one was in the name all along.

When Raymond and Winnie opened, their granddaughter Daphne Bumpus told the Globe for that 2005 obituary, they named the place for Wimpy, the hamburger-loving character in the Popeye comic strip.

Wimpy was a moocher of high ceremony. By March 1932, according to his Wikipedia entry, his line had settled into the one people still quote: "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Six years later, a six-stool stand in Osterville took his name.

Nobody has said the Oct. 6 date is a nod to the strip. Hostetter's stated reason is the neighbors. But a restaurant named for the man who always promised to settle up on Tuesday is holding its last big night on a Tuesday, and charging almost nothing for the hamburger.

The reason for the move is narrow and on the record: Wimpy's lease at 752 Main St. was not renewed, and lease extensions carried it through the season. When we wrote about Wimpy's in February, the lease was due to end April 30 and the owners were looking for a new spot nearby. The sources we reviewed this week don't say what comes next for the Osterville building.

The Hyannis site is under agreement and undergoing inspection, the Times reported, and the owners won't name it until that's done. Hostetter said they expect the process to be completed by Oct. 26. That's a deal date, not an opening date; no reopening date had been announced when we checked. The goal, he told the Times, is to be closed "for not quite a week."

The name makes the trip. So do favorite recipes, his grandfather's clam chowder among them, and many of the staff. Patch reported the menu is expected to stay largely the same, with a few additions.

What stays behind is the address. For 88 years, "Wimpy's" has meant a particular stretch of Main Street in Osterville, with a market on one side of the building and the cafe on the other.

The cartoon Wimpy made a career out of promising to pay on Tuesday. In Osterville, the tab comes due on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 752 Main St., and it's 15 cents.

The details