Bluecoast arrives in Rehoboth

It’s not often that a restaurant includes a library, but it’s instructive in showing that Bluecoast Seafood Grill and Raw Bar indeed has a little something for everybody.

The latest restaurant from SoDel Concepts, Bluecoast is a 250-seat venture on Route 1 offering a raw bar, outdoor bar and patio, a stage for acoustic music and a library room for private parties. Marketing Director Nelia Dolan said the plan is for Bluecoast to be open for dinner only.

“We tried to build a restaurant that our community would like and be proud of,” said SoDel Concepts President Scott Kammerer.

The menu begins with appetizer favorites like gumbo, crab dip and calamari, and moves on to shrimp and grits, blackened tuna and crab imperial-stuffed shrimp. Not limited to seafood, Bluecoast also offers fried chicken, rib eye and burgers.

Dolan said Bluecoast has 12 draft beer taps inside and outside, and has two scratch beers from Troegs in Pennsylvania and Revelation Craft Brewing just down the road in Rehoboth. The Troegs beer is a passionfruit IPA, but Bluecoast will rotate specialty beers from Troegs throughout the year.

“We’re excited about that,” Dolan said. “We’ve worked with Troegs a long time.”

All told, Dolan said, it took Bluecoast about six months to go from a square of dirt on the ground to a finished restaurant. The inspiration for Bluecoast was because SoDel Concepts’ other restaurants in the Rehoboth area - Papa Grande’s and Lupo Italian Kitchen - are not seafood oriented. This is SoDel Concepts 10th restaurant in the Cape Region.

Bluecoast was the original restaurant offering from the late Matt Haley in Bethany Beach, still open today. Haley was one of the region’s most beloved chefs, and a James Beard Award winner, until his passing due to injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident in 2014. So what would the SoDel Concepts founder have thought about where his organization has come?

“I think he’d be really thrilled. There’s eight people who are now Matt. They are all people he picked. I think he’d be happy with that,” Dolan said.