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Delaware Online | The News Journal
New Delaware restaurants include Caribbean, upscale barbecue, soul food, ice cream
By Patricia Talorico, Ben Mace, Shannon Marvel McNaught and Matthew Korfhage, Delaware News Journal,
6 hours ago
We hope you're hungry. More than a dozen new restaurants have opened or are coming soon throughout the state.
The offerings include an upscale barbecue offering in Wilmington's Trolley Square from a chef featured on the Food Network, a new Jamaican eatery in Wilmington from the owners of a popular food truck, a hall of spicy Punjabi delicacies and Indian ice cream, an Eastern Shore-style crab and beer garden in Smyrna, the revamping of a historic site in Port Penn, and a couple of new ice cream spots in Sussex County resort towns.
Wilmington Chef Dan Sheridan, operator of Stitch House Brewery on Market Street , is gearing up to reopen his Locale BBQ Post restaurant in Trolley Square with a new name and look.
The restaurant has gotten a facelift over the past two years and has been reincarnated as The Post.
It will serve brunch and dinner and the menu features Sheridan's specialty, smoke-kissed dishes. There are 10 seats on the back patio and 40 inside. A garden house in the back will become a cooperative art studio and Sheridan said he has planted a "massive chef's garden."
Locale BBQ Post opened in 2015 at 1014 Lincoln St. and became an instant hit.
In 2021, Sheridan leased the site of the former Scrumptious cafe on Delaware Avenue and moved the barbecue takeout. At that time, he did some interior renovations to the Trolley Square cafe. Sheridan said the pandemic was still raging at that time and the site only operated as a takeout operation for about six months.
He said plans have long been underway to revamp the site. "It's kind of like The Locale BBQ Post grew up. It's kind of going full circle. I do come from a fine-dining background and this has been what I really wanted to do," Sheridan said.
He said the smoker is still on site, and there are smoke-cooked foods on the menu, but it's "not a bunch of sauces and a big platter of meat. We are veg heavy which I hope surprises people in a good way."
He said there will be seafood, including a smoked fish dip as well as smoked eggplant. "You're still getting that comfort food, but it's definitely elevated."
The Post will have a "soft opening" this weekend, mostly for family and friends. It will open to the public on Wednesday, July 24.
Hours will be 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 4 p.m. to midnight Friday; 11 a.m. to midnight Saturday; and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
A Caribbean restaurant has taken over the former home of Kampo Gardens, a Chinese, mostly take-out restaurant in downtown Wilmington.
Hummingbird Island Cuisine opened in early July. It is across from the Doubletree Hotel and is owned by Jamaica-born natives Ricky and Shena Downs.
The pair have long run the Hummingbird Island Cuisine food truck, which they still operate, that is frequently seen at Downtown Wilmington's Farmers Market in Rodney Square and various locations around New Castle County.
The new restaurant offers take-out or customers can order at the counter and sit at one of the six high-top tables and chairs, painted gold, black, and green, the colors of the Jamaican flag.
Entrees at the restaurant served with two sides, include oxtails, curry goat, jerk chicken, jerk pork, and brown stew chicken.
Candied yams, fried plantains, traditional rice and peas, steamed cabbage and macaroni and cheese make up the side dishes. They also serve Jamaican-style patties, coco bread, tropical juices, and Jamaican soda.
Hummingbird Island Cuisine is open from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Sammy's Kitchen has been operating on Wilmington Avenue in downtown Rehoboth Beach for 27 years, and this year, owner Kevin Salameh added a new concept to the business.
"Inspired by the beloved Royal Treat," a longtime Rehoboth ice cream parlor that was located down the street until its closure a few years ago, "Sammy’s is stepping up to continue its legacy," a news release from the Rehoboth Beach – Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce said.
Sammy's Ice Cream will adjoin Sammy's Kitchen and, much like Royal Treat, will feature 24 flavors of Hershey's ice cream, milkshakes, floats, sundaes, waffles and a toppings bar. They'll also offer hand-spun cotton candy, and the menu includes lactose- and sugar-free options.
Sammy's Ice Cream is open daily from noon to 10 p.m.
A jalebi is a sweet little dessert found seemingly everywhere in India, a gram-flour funnel cake often curled into spirals and drenched in rosewater. "Jalebi Baby," on the other hand, was the inescapable Desi-Canadian club banger of the early 2020s — a relentless little earworm that has now lent its name to Delaware's newest Indian restaurant.
Jalebi is on the dessert menu, of course. But so are a host of other Indian sweet treats rarely seen on these shores, whether milky-nutty matka kulfi or Indian ice cream, from the Vadilal brand best known for subcontinental flavors like mango, malai and falooda (and for its own catchy musical commercial s.)
But if "Jalebi" is the hook, the core of the sit-down menu is northern Indian, specifically Punjabi flavors from India's northwest — home to tandoor-cooked skewers and roti flatbreads, multiple takes on the many-layered rice biryani, spicy kadahi goat and chicken, chickpea-dotted chole and a host of modern fusion dishes that include Indian takes on cheesesteaks and french fries.
Fans of the famous fried catfish or chicken and waffles at Evelyn's Soul Food, long a favorite of some of Wilmington's political power base, will have to travel to a new location these days. In May, Evelyn's re-opened at the former Maryland Avenue sub shop at Maryland Ave and Beech Street, at the border of Browntown and Hedgeville.
There, expect sweet-minded homestyle breakfasts of french toast or hotcakes in the morning, joined in the afternoon by Southern-inflected, golden-brown fried chicken or fried fish, sides of greens or yams or mac and cheese, smothered pork chops and meatloaf: all the things that feel like home even if no one ever cooked them for you at home.
Evelyn's Soul Food is opens 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 8. a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Clove & Cedar Coffeebar is open just outside Bethany Beach's on Route 26. Owner Janet Florini previously had a store in Bethesda, Maryland, the business's website says.
The "grab-and-go" coffee bar uses "regionally sourced specialty coffee and tea" and offers local baked goods from Kristina’s Cakery and Old World Breads., a news release from the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce said. A portion of sales will be donated to nonprofits Operation SEAs the Day and the Delaware Botanic Gardens.
Besides drip coffee, Clove & Cedar offers a full espresso menu, including lattes and cappuccinos.
After operating a takeout seafood business for decades, Eastern Shore Seafood has opened a "crabs & beer garden" for people to enjoy food and drinks on the property on Route 13 South across from Willis Chevrolet in Smyrna.
“I’ve been talking about doing this for 20 years,” said owner Frank E. Coleman. “I wanted to complete my dream.”
He took over the family business passed down from his father, Frank M. Coleman, part of a legacy of generations in the seafood industry dating back about 200 years.
The new outdoor dining area includes 25 tables with umbrellas, cornhole boards and a stage.
Coleman plans to offer live music each week along with DJs and karaoke. The grand opening on the Fourth of July featured the Jim Bob Cochran Band.
The menu includes crabs, clams, shrimp, snow crab legs, mussels, scallops, crawfish, oysters and side dishes like corn on the cob. Drinks include 10 beers on tap and a variety of canned alcoholic beverages like hard seltzers.
Hours for the beer garden are Thursday to Sunday from 2 to 9 p.m., but those times may be extended by customer demand, Coleman said. The takeout business is open seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., from April to October.
Middletown Outback
503 Merrimac Ave., 302-696-2762, outback.com . Opens July 30.
The Florida-based, Australia-themed steakhouse chain, best known for its grill-seared steaks and trademark Bloomin' Onion appetizer, has been on the menu at 503 Merrimac Ave. for at least a year. That's when Dover-based Axia Hotel Group put up a sign that the steakhouse would arrive to co-anchor a brand-new commercial center called Merrimac Gateway, alongside a Chili's and a Home2 Suites Hotel.
After much anticipation, we are pleased to announce that Outback will soon let in Middletown customers. Onions will bloom, and steaks will sear to order. "Grilled shrimp on the barbie" will join "Kookaburra wings" and "Toowoomba salmon" — which is to say, spicy wings and salmon with shrimp in Creole sauce.
The projected opening date for the Middletown Outback will be Tuesday, July 30, according to a company spokesperson. Plan accordingly.
The Middletown location will be the fourth in Delaware, alongside the locations in Rehoboth Beach, Dover and the Newark area.
It's not every day the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk gets a new eatery, much less its first taco stand.
Owner Robert Frankis called Baja Bob's a "casual dining experience." The 3,400 square-foot restaurant is located beneath Above the Dunes, with a menu featuring nine types of tacos, burritos, rice bowls and salads. The restaurant has seating for about 100 people, a full bar and a take-out window.
The former Augustine Inn Seafood & Chop House had a short shelf life. It had a grand reopening in 2022, but then it permanently closed this past January, according to a Google search. The restaurant's email was no longer working and phone and Facebook messages left for the restaurant were not immediately returned.
The landmark, a roadside attraction along Delaware Route 9, once had been a hotel and was considered a posh resort in the 1930s when the area was a popular gathering spot. It has been home to several businesses over the years.
Now, the historic building that dates back to 1814 and overlooks the Delaware Bay will be reborn.
According to a Facebook post , the restaurant group that owns the Chadds Ford Tavern on Baltimore Pike in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Kings Tavern in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, are among those who are "cleaning up the property and planning to open fall 2024."
The restaurant will be renamed the Augustine Tavern. Stay tuned for more information soon.
The owners of several Bardea restaurant operations in Wilmington are creating a new Italian trattoria inside the DE.CO Food Hall in downtown Wilmington. The full-service restaurant, which doesn't yet have a name, will open this fall.
Bardea is partners with DE.CO owners Buccini Pollin Group on the restaurant that will be designed by Philadelphia-based Stokes Architecture + Design . The design firm's recent work in Wilmington includes two other Buccini Pollin Group-affiliated businesses, Bardea Steak and The Quoin Hotel.
The trattoria will have 70 seats and operate daily for lunch and dinner. James Beard Foundation nominated chef Antimo DiMeo, a Bardea partner, is planning the menu which will be "casual Italian."
The restaurant will occupy the seating area in DE.CO that is adjacent to the bar that extends along Orange Street. Bardea's fast-casual stalls Pizzeria Bardea and Taqueria El Chingon will continue operating.
Construction on the restaurant is scheduled to start at the end of July.
Scoop-a-licious is open on Route 113 in Millsboro, serving a variety of Blue Bunny ice cream creations.
Husband-wife team Phil Noel and Sherrie Hearn moved to southern Delaware from Maryland three years ago, Noel said.
"A good friend of mine has an ice cream shop, and, well, he kinda talked me into it," Noel said. "And I'm glad he did!"
Scoop-a-licious offers 18 flavors of hard-scoop ice cream, sundaes, splits and floats. One of their most popular items is ice cream nachos, Noel said, comprising waffle cone chips, three scoops of ice cream and toppings. They serve shaved ice, as well.
There is no indoor seating but there are some outdoor tables and chairs at the shop, which is open 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, except for Saturdays, when the shop is open until 10 p.m.
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