SEED Eatery now open on Route 1 in Sandpiper Plaza

It’s been two weeks since SEED Eatery opened on Route 1 outside Rehoboth Beach, but it’s been a two-year labor of love for owners Yauhen Yurhelevich and Dmitry Gorin to get to this point.

“We could have opened this place up in three months, but we spent hours and hours, days and days doing our research and making it right,” said Gorin, who is in charge of the new restaurant’s marketing and front end. Yurhelevich is the head chef.

After years in the restaurant industry, locally and nationally, Yurhelevich and Gorin said they have opened SEED because there’s a need for a place that’s 100 percent free of gluten, dairy and egg, and while there are meat options, the menu is 90 percent vegetarian. There’s nothing around here like this, said Yurhelevich.

The primary food item at SEED is a one-size-for-all bowl, which customers create in an assembly line method. Beginning by picking two of four bases – leafy vegetables and a kind of rice – customers have one healthy option after another as they make their way down the line. Customers can also create their own bowls to meet dietary needs. Gorin said the food is delivered daily from sources as local as possible. 

Yurhelevich said all the food is steamed, baked or roasted to preserve the healthy benefits. It takes a little longer to prepare the food cooking it that way, but Yurhelevich said after years of working in traditional kitchens, it’s nice not to have to work around a hot grill, a frialator and a commercial range hood. It’s not nearly as hot, he said, smiling.

For drinks, SEED has handmade cold-pressed juices and smoothies, kombucha on tap and bottled, plus Found Soda and Lorina Sparkling Soda. Gorin’s wife Olesya Kochegura, a former college student who worked abroad, prepares much of the juices and bottled kombucha. She’s an integral part of the operation, he said.

In addition to healthy eating, SEED uses biodegradable to-go containers, cups, straws and utensils.

“If we’re going to do it, we want to do it right,” said Gorin.

Located in Sandpiper Plaza, about half a mile north of Rehoboth Diner on the same side of Route 1, Yurhelevich and Gorin said the location for SEED is great because it has free parking and easy access. 

Plus, said Gorin, there’s a lot of exposure. It’s located equally between Lewes and Rehoboth, he said, and the intersection of Route 1 and Route 24 is the busiest in Sussex County.

Yurhelevich is from Belarus. Gorin is from Russia. The two men said they fell in love with the Cape Region a decade ago as college students working here during the summer.

“I love this place,” said Gorin. “It’s beautiful and clean, and there’s the ocean.”

SEED Eatery, 18979 Coastal Highway, Unit 105, is open seven days a week – 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday.

Gorin said a website is under development and will be done soon.

He said there will be online ordering when it’s completed. For more information, call 302-313-5981.