From fine dining to meatloaf & fries: All in a day's work for Pete McMahon

The new Jimmy's Grille in Rehoboth has attracted a lot of attention! I was in there around 5:15 on a Tuesday a couple of weeks ago (picking up a coconut cake – trust me on this...). The restaurant was on a 45-minute wait! "On a wait" is restaurant-speak for "you won't be sitting down – much less eating – for about 45 minutes. Aren't you happy you picked such a popular place?"

It's not like Jimmy's is an unknown quantity. The restaurant has been a fixture in Bridgeville for decades; a much anticipated breakfast treat for beach-bound families. Location number two opened in Dewey, but with an abbreviated menu – after all, Dewey's all about partying, and much of Jimmy's Dewey Beach clientele camps out at the huge bar. But owner Alex Pires knew that a Jimmy's in Rehoboth Beach would be different. Sharing the same shopping center with Fork & Flask @ Nage and Touch of Italy, Jimmy's would need a more extensive menu, specifically, the same menu – and prices – available at the mothership in Bridgeville. 

Pires' go-to guy for putting together and controlling the nightly influx of Rehoboth's comfort-food aficionados is none other than Highway One LP's Executive Chef Pete McMahon. Pires' empire encompasses four restaurants and a nightclub in Dewey Beach, the original Jimmy's in Bridgeville and the newest one in Rehoboth. And Pete's in charge of them all. 

The impressive kitchen at the new Jimmy's looks like it was lifted out of a mega-cruise ship. Rows of fryers (under one of the longest ventilation hoods I've ever seen) keep their signature hormone-free chicken flyin' out of the kitchen. Airport-runway length flattop griddles sizzle away with hamburgers, grilled chicken and who knows what else. One of the most impressive areas is the baking section where an entire wall is made up of nothing but ovens. And the walk-in cooler is large enough to house a small family! Given the recent heat wave, I could easily move in there. 

But it's all in a day's work for the always helpful and friendly Pete McMahon, whose grandfather worked at New York's Russian Tea Room for more than 25 years. Pete earned his culinary degree from Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I., and has been thriving in food service for over 30 years. Thirteen of those years were spent at Rehoboth's Blue Moon, where his flair for keeping the fine-dining menu "beach friendly" helped contribute to The Moon's outstanding reputation. 

In 2005 he left the Blue Moon to partner with Alex and Jamie Davis at JD Shuckers near Lewes. Many of Pete's finely honed skills from the Blue Moon had no place at Shuckers, where a faithful, homegrown clientele was not interested in hoity-toity cookery. He rose to the occasion, evolving the restaurant into a fun and flirty family place sporting a raw bar and local entertainment. His resourcefulness paid off: After five years he and Pires sold their shares to Davis and walked away debt-free. The neighborhood concept has been so successful that Davis will soon open a second JD Shuckers in Georgetown. 

When Dewey's Venus on the Half Shell morphed into Ivy, Pete, along with co-owner John Snow capitalized on the bay view by revamping the menu and the physical layout. McMahon stuck with his tried-and-proven mantra: "Keep it upscale, but not over the top." Wearing more hats than just his white toque, Pete eventually took on the massive task of revamping the look, the menu and the reputation of the family-friendly buffet at the Rusty Rudder. 

On any given summer's day, Pete can be found hovering over the Rudder's huge buffet; overseeing the bayfront cachet of Ivy, or cranking out (in Pires' words) "happy beach food" just a few hundred feet away at Northbeach. With the opening of the Rehoboth Jimmy's, Highway One LP will employ almost 700 people to feed and entertain up to 2,500 beach visitors daily. With four different price points and levels of culinary execution, Chef McMahon has his work cut out for him. And so goes this Business of Eating at the beach.