The Coffee Mill Dewey Beach now open on Route 1
Story Location:
1700 Coastal Highway
Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971
United States
A couple of weeks after the opening of The Coffee Mill Dewey Beach, owners Bill Cartwright and Mel Damascena are pretty pleased with how things are going.
“So far, we’re just as busy here as we are in Rehoboth,” said Damascena, with Cartwright adding, “Everything is going great here in Dewey.”
Cartwright and Damascena opened The Coffee Mill in Rehoboth Beach in 1992 in the Rehoboth Mews alley off Rehoboth Avenue. During an interview June 13, they said they had been looking for years to open a second location, but it had to be just right.
“We’ve thought about it many times, but we didn’t want to be competing with ourselves,” said Damascena.
That just-right spot was exactly what Cartwright and Damascena got when the new owners of the Atlantic Oceanside Dewey Beach Resort approached them about opening a coffee shop space fronting Route 1. The owners are longtime customers of the Rehoboth Beach location and it’s only about a mile from the flagship shop, so it was something that could work, said Cartwright.
The menu for the Dewey location – coffee, sandwiches, smoothies, açaí bowls – is the same as the one in Rehoboth Beach, said Cartwright. The only real difference is two areas of additional rooftop seating for customers, he said.
The coffee shop’s expansion into Dewey Beach continues the growth of the business footprint for Cartwright and Damascena. In July 2014, they opened Brashhh, a men’s clothing store that also features home decor items, on North First Street. Two summers ago, they opened The Mill Creamery, which features ice cream from Hopkins Farm Creamery, and is on the other side of the Rehoboth Mews alley.
The new Dewey shop has enough space for Cartwright and Damascena to also offer ice cream and clothing under one roof.
“This is a combination of everything we do,” said Damascena. “Having this selection gives us something here in Dewey that no one else has.”
For now, The Coffee Mill Dewey Beach is open daily 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., with a break from 2 to 5 p.m. However, Damascena said, those hours can change depending on how busy it is. It could be open later and there may not be a break if it’s too busy, he said.
The expectation is that The Coffee Mill Dewey Beach will be seasonal, but that could change too if needed, said Damascena.
For more information on the Coffee Mill Dewey Beach, 1700 Coastal Highway, call 302-227-7530, email thecoffeemillrehoboth@hotmail.com or go to the coffee shop’s Instagram page, found by searching thecoffeemilldewey.
