Last year, it was the Greene Turtle on the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk that closed. This year, it’s the Greene Turtle in the Villages of Five Points outside Lewes.
In an email Sept. 27, co-owner Mike Venanzi said the last day for the Lewes restaurant is Friday, Sept. 30. He declined to comment on what the space will be next.
According to the restaurant’s Facebook page, individuals with mugs can collect mugs listed under their names during regular business hours.
Venanzi and co-owner Bob Frankis also owned and operated the Greene Turtle in Rehoboth. In its place, they opened Above the Dunes. During an interview in March, weeks before opening the new restaurant, Venanzi said the sports bar theme had run its course.
The original Greene Turtle opened in Ocean City, Md., in 1976. The Greene Turtle in Lewes opened in January 2008 and was the 18th restaurant for the mid-Atlantic chain at the time.
According to the Greene Turtle’s corporate website, which still includes the restaurant in Lewes, there are now 34.
Once the Five Points location closes, there will be no Greene Turtle restaurants in the immediate area. The corporate website shows the next closest locations are in West Ocean City, Salisbury and Dover.
Chris Flood has been working for the Cape Gazette since early 2014. He currently covers Rehoboth Beach and Henlopen Acres, but has also covered Dewey Beach and the state government. He covers environmental stories, business stories and random stories on subjects he finds interesting, and he also writes a column called Choppin’ Wood that runs every other week. Additionally, Flood moonlights as the company’s circulation manager, which primarily means fixing boxes that are jammed with coins during daylight hours, but sometimes means delivering papers in the middle of the night. He’s a graduate of the University of Maine and the Landing School of Boat Building & Design.