Salt Air to reopen in April

Salt Air restaurant at Avenue in Rehoboth Beach is set to reopen under new, but familiar management.

Taking over Salt Air will be Eric and Norman Sugrue, who also own Big Fish Grill and Summer House. Eric Sugrue said he would continue Salt Air’s farm-to-table concept emphasizing local produce, sustainable seafood and organic meats and poultry.

“We are keeping it Salt Air. We want to continue to do the farm-to-table type stuff. We’re going to keep that beach feel,” he said.

Salt Air, 50 Wilmington Ave., closed suddenly in September in the middle of an interior renovation. Sugrue said he wanted to carry on the work of former co-owner Jonathon Spivak. The renovations Spivak began will be finished, and the kitchen will be upgraded. Salt Air will round out the Sugrues’ other restaurants, he said.

“It complements us at Big Fish. We are a very casual, fast-paced, family-oriented restaurant here that serves many different kinds of fish and seafood and all kinds of things – it’s a very broad-based menu. It’s not going to be as broad there. We’re going to keep it the way they did and focus on 10 items, where we do 60 items here,” Sugrue said.

He said the menu at Salt Air would be primarily seafood with a mix of beef, pork and poultry. For the most part, the menu will be almost the same as it was before.

“It evolved. It went all over the place,” Sugrue said of the Salt Air menu. “What we want to do is try to capture that again," he said. "The menu is going to change a little bit, based on how their menu has evolved since inception.”

Speaking of Big Fish, Sugrue said, “We don’t want to cannibalize here and Summer House; so being open in January on a Tuesday, we find that that’s the last thing we want to do."

Sugrue said he wants Salt Air to complement all the other great restaurants in Rehoboth. While the concept and menu of Salt Air will be similar, Sugrue said he hopes to add strong management to the restaurant’s operation.

”We’re going to bring a strong management team keeping with the same basic ideas of what they had started and created. We’re going to take that concept and try to execute and try to take it to the next level,” he said. “It’s just going to be a fun, happening spot.”

In its inaugural summer under new management, Salt Air will be open on a limited basis starting in April before opening seven-days-a-week after Memorial Day and then scaling back to four-to-five days a week after Labor Day. Salt Air will be open for private parties only in December and will be closed in January and February. No hours have been posted, but Salt Air has started hiring; more information can be found at www.saltairrestaurant.com.