After 40 years, Rehoboth’s Jon Orlando hangs up knives

After nearly 40 years in the Rehoboth Beach restaurant scene, Just in Thyme owner and chef Jon Orlando has decided it's time to hang up his knives.

“My wife and I are healthy and financially secure, so it’s time to enjoy life while I still can,” said Orlando, a few days after he closed Just in Thyme for good. “You can’t keep pushing and pushing and pushing. It doesn’t work that way. It’ll be nice to actually see what a weekend is like.”

Orlando and his wife Leslie opened their first restaurant Potpourri on Rehoboth Avenue in 1985, in the location that is now Chesapeake & Maine. In the late 1990s, the couple purchased and then moved to the corner of Route 1 and Robinsons Drive outside Rehoboth Beach, where they opened Just in Thyme.

At both restaurants, it was year-round service. Orlando said the goal was to create a loyal customer base with locals, then capitalize on summer crowds. The longest either restaurant was closed was seven weeks for the remodeling of the building for Just in Thyme, he said.

“That’s why we’ve always had such a local following,” said Orlando. “I always said, ‘We’re not a beach restaurant. We’re a restaurant at the beach.’”

Even a 2014 fire in one of the upstairs apartments couldn’t keep Just in Thyme closed.

“I tried to reopen the same day, but the fire marshal wouldn’t let me. I opened the next day though. You have to. Once customers get used to you being closed, it’s bad for business,” said Orlando.

Orlando, 64, turning 65 in January, has been in business for 40 years, but his love of the kitchen goes back to his days as a child. He said he would help his mom and grandmother in the kitchen. Then as a 12-year-old, he got a job delivering food, and spent a lot of time in the kitchen at that restaurant.

“It gets in your blood,” said Orlando.

It’s not a complete surprise Orlando has decided to retire. The building, which has been a restaurant of some kind since the 1950s, has been for sale for well over a year.

Orlando said the building was almost sold earlier this year, but it fell through, which meant they had to scramble to get ready for another summer. It worked out, because it was a great summer, he said.

It appears the future owners are going to be opening a restaurant at the Just in Thyme location too, but it will have a different feel. The day of the interview, someone was there to pick up a coffee machine.

The new owners have a different vision for what’s next, so everything’s got to go, said Orlando.