Arena's opens new restaurant in Long Neck

Arena’s deli has opened a new location in Long Neck.

Signing a lease less than six weeks before opening night in late December, owner Ramsey Schrader said the business partners have had to move fast to give their new space hallmarks of Arena's. They call their new Long Neck location a hybrid of the café and deli business models.

“The business itself is almost 22 years old,” Schrader said. “We are just carrying it on, maintaining the same quality that has kept Arena's in business so long.”

As the first thoughts of a Long Neck location were filtering into the minds of the five-person partnership that owns Arena's, Schrader said he started testing the waters on social media and got great responses.

“One of the first things we did to feel this out was to use social networking to get feedback from residents and customers of Arena's,” he said. “We have Facebook and Twitter accounts, so I’ve been tweeting my pictures as we go and putting them up on Facebook.  That’s something we’ve done with this new place is to embrace the new technology and way of doing business.”

As a resident of the area, fellow Arena's owner Matt Evans said he has witnessed the rapid population and business growth in Long Neck, so when the location became available near Giant, the businessmen jumped on the opportunity.

“Out of all of us, I live out here, and basically it's pizza, wings and Chinese if you want to go out to eat,” Evans said. “We just felt the area needed some place to go eat at a moderate price, with soup or salad and a vegetarian menu.”

The newest location will offer the same classic menu and weekly specials as the other locations of Arena's, along with beer and wine, but there is no bar currently in the works for Long Neck, owners said.

Evans said he has worked hard to ensure the place was as family-friendly as the other locations.

“One of the big things we want to get across is that we have a wide range of clientele, from doctors to lawyers to guys working on construction sites,” he said. “We are very family oriented, and we are trying to get the family in. We’re big with high school kids, too. There is something for everyone.”

Arena's Long Neck is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. For more information, visit www.arenasdeliandbar.com, or call the Rehoboth Beach location at 302-227-1272.