Rehoboth restaurants star in new exhibit
As the Rehoboth Beach business community opens for the season, an exhibit honoring the history of Rehoboth’s restaurants is set to debut at the Rehoboth Beach Museum.
The exhibit, called Beach Eats, opens Saturday, May 25.
Barbara Smith, museum program assistant, said the exhibit came from a simple press release asking for items. What came in formed a picture of Rehoboth’s colorful restaurant history. Knickknacks such as matchbooks, napkins, pins, photos, T-shirts, menus and magazine and newspaper articles, are set alongside major pieces, such as Dogfish Head’s original beer tank, the old Gus and Gus sign and a Royal Treat menu signed by former First Lady Laura Bush. Other items recall long-departed Rehoboth restaurants such as the Front Page, Celsius and Sir Guy’s.
“The idea of the exhibit is to tell the history of Rehoboth. The idea is to show the evolution. What do people do so much when they come to the ocean? Eat! And they eat fun things,” Smith said.
The exhibit will be in place until March.
Attending a May 21 sneak preview were four notable Rehoboth restaurateurs.
“I don’t have children of my own, so I felt like the 60 or so people I hired were like my children," said Sue Krick, who owned the Summer House on Rehoboth Avenue for more than 20 years. "It was the staff. The customers were great, but I didn’t see them that much. I knew them by their credit card the next morning.”
The Summer House donated buttons, photos and one of the original aprons for the exhibit.
Keith Fitzgerald, co-owner of Back Porch Café, said, “It brings back a lot of good memories. It’s a nice idea. It’s something local people will enjoy and probably summer visitors, who don’t really know the history, will realize what a rich history we have for cuisine here.”
For former Chez La Mer beverage manager Tom Wayson, the exhibit was a chance to see a side of Rehoboth that he had not seen before.
"The people that have saved these items for many years and chosen to donate them to this exhibit is really great,” he said.
“These iconic, graphic reminders represent a lot of hard work, dedication and effort from people who really wanted to change this town one bite at a time,” said Joyce Felton, former owner of Blue Moon and Tijuana Taxi, among many others.
One thing the restaurateurs all agreed on: the 1980s Rehoboth restaurant scene was a very different place than it is today. Restaurants would each have their own special nights Krick said. For example, Summer House had Tuesday night “Iced Tea Night,” while Obie’s By The Sea and Frannie O’Brien’s had their own nights.
“Everybody respected each other,” Krick said.
“We were like a band of crazy brothers and sisters,” Felton said.
“The restaurant community in the '80s was a very close-knit community. If you needed something, you just ran there and got it," Wayson said. "Everyone worked together. We partied together, we played together. It’s really different than it is today because there are so many establishments now.”
“It’s still friendly competition," Fitzgerald said. “But it’s hard to know everyone when there are 30-some restaurants.”
Also represented at the sneak preview was one of Rehoboth’s true landmark businesses: Gus & Gus, which opened in 1956. Co-owner Bill Svolis said the sign on display dates back to 1980. The sign was removed and replaced last year and was slated to be thrown away before the Svolis family decided to donate it to the exhibit.
“Ever since we took it down, people have been coming by and taking pictures of where the sign used to be,” Svolis said. “We were going to toss it.”
The original restaurant was destroyed during the Storm of ’62. The Svolis’ rebuilt, and Gus & Gus has grown into a must-stop Boardwalk destination.
“I think it’s awesome,” Svolis said of the exhibit. “It’s great to see all this old stuff in here.”
