A fun weekend in Rehoboth Beach, DE
I spent part of the holiday weekend in Rehoboth Beach and it was great. Don’t know if it was only that it was Veteran’s Day weekend but evening parking downtown was tough. I am lucky and have a parking space in-town. What was great is all the restaurants were open and were all busy.
I am an early riser and my favorite way to start the morning at the beach is at the Coffee Mill in the mews between Rehoboth Avenue and Baltimore Avenue. Bob and Mel (who also owns Brashhh men’s clothing store on 1st street) and their staff are there to open at 7:00am with a great selection of coffees and pastries. Since I go every day I am at the beach it’s fun to have them punch the card they hand out to customers and for every ten cups of coffee get one free. Driving up early on Friday I headed straight there even before going to my house. As always there were fun people coming in to chat with. This Friday that included the Mayor and the new Executive Director of CAMP, David Mariner. Another friend David joined me there and is becoming a regular as he is now going to live at the beach fulltime.
It was a windy day but that didn’t stop me from a quick walk on the boardwalk and going around town to check out what’s new. I heard Megan Key who has La Fable and Houston White Co. is going to open a third restaurant where the old Espuma and Wine bar was on 1st street. It will be an Italian place. Knowing Megan it will be expensive but very good. Now the talk of the LGBTQ community was the purchase of Aqua Grill from Bill Shields by two of the three owners of The PINES, Tyler and Bob and their new business partner at Aqua, Kevin McDuffie. They have said they will keep it the same in many ways but host more special events, redo the bathrooms which need it, and change the menu including adding a pizza oven to the kitchen. They plan to open in April.
On Friday evening headed to The PINES for happy hour and was greeted at the door by Tyler and then went upstairs. It was really busy and got a tour of the party room in the back with its stage and theatrical lighting and grand piano. There are going to be some great events there. I heard the final event of the Jazz festival held there was wonderful. They intend to make the front room more comfortable for the winter adding some couches and a smaller piano for entertainment. From there headed to Café Azafran with friends Marvin, Dan and Tony for their Friday night seafood special menu and to say hello to Holly at the bar. You can’t beat $27 for a three course meal with every option great.
Saturday dawned nice and sunny and a little warmer, at least it felt that way without the wind. So again drove into town to get my injection of java at the Coffee Mill. Since Browseabout bookstore doesn’t open until 8:00am off-season Bob had picked up a copy of the Washington Post for me on his way in. Where else can you get such incredible service? Then it was a relaxing day, with some writing in the afternoon, and back to The PINES for another happy hour where it was busy again and it was great to see Dominic, one of my recent Danube cruise friends, there. This time friends Rob, Carlos and David joined me and we went to the Purple Parrot for a light dinner. The super trio of Chandler, Matt and Jamie were behind the bar at the Parrot and it was great to see them.
Then it was back to DC early Sunday but can’t wait to be back at the beach again for Thanksgiving weekend.
