Off the Dewey Beach warpath, Scraps restaurant and bar welcomes all in need of eardrum rehabilitation. While the Rudder Deck creaks under hundreds of feet, only a few dozen regulars line the bar at Scraps, enjoying a beer in relative serenity.
Formerly Dewey Beach Club, a local fixture for nearly two decades, Scraps owner Kevin Cannatelli [...]
A soggy June has Dewey Beach businesspeople gnashing their teeth. Newcomer businesses like Dewey Dogs are frantically diversifying, hoping to strike a chord with the lunch crowed, while established bars are digging in with tried-and-true drink specials and band lineups. Hotels light up their VACANCY neons and stoke the zeitgeist on billboards: welcome to Dewey. [...]
On the Fourth of July, a team of Dewey Beach revelers and everyman scientists revisited the classic question: Will This Float? For three whitewashed lifeguard stands, the answer was yes – one floated five miles to Cape Henlopen State Park, and the other was recovered in nearby Seashore State Park. The third remains missing.
Nose-smashing games [...]
Jimmy’s Grille sells itself as a no-hassle, unpretentious place to grab fried food. The pavilion-style restaurant has bare picnic tables, plastic cutlery and mismatched barn siding for wall paneling – this ain’t a place to take your girl, it seems to say, but it is a place to get grease on your chin.
And boy, can [...]
Slow night in Dewey Beach. The high-noon drinking of Running of the Bull sent many to an early bed, and those who filtered out of the bars at closing time looked shell-shocked. Assault reports trickled in one or two per hour; no major noise complaints; few drunk and disorderly. At 2:38 a.m., Sgt. Cliff Dempsey [...]
After the solstice, summer takes a sinister bend in Dewey Beach, Del. The air grows thicker, the drinks taste thinner, and everyone is a little more on edge than the night before. What we called energy in June has become entropy, spinning too fast to hold together. Little bits shake off and land in [...]
I found the bagpiper. His name is Lockbox, and like most firefighters, he looks like he could flatten you with one punch. He’s keen to point this out, among other painful things he can do to me, as he tells me not to print half of what comes out of his mouth. Accordingly, I will [...]
Dewey Beach is a great place for a washed-up '90s band to put on a show. They’re guaranteed a sympathetic audience—thanks, beer—which is a great confidence boost for whatever comeback they’re attempting to mount. Lifehouse staged one such earnest-but-flat show at the Baycenter in 2005, managing to inspire singalong for “Hanging by a Moment.”
Better Than [...]
Dewey Beach, dead noon: Man weaves sloppy S's down the sidewalk, wearing half of his shirt. He wears a red bandana around his neck. Later, I see a Marine arguing with someone on his cell phone. (He must be a Marine, I decide, because of the eagle, globe and anchor tattooed on his action-figure abs, [...]
Mayor Adrian Fenty was in Rehoboth Beach, Del. for the July 4 Rehoboth Biathlon, finishing just behind marathoner Mike Wardian. Fenty talked to Dave Frederick, sports editor for The Cape Gazette after finishing the race.
"I get out to train early while our three kids are still asleep," he said. "It's almost essential that I begin [...]
Northbeach isn’t anyone’s favorite bar – which is odd. The bayside location is unbeatable. The generous amount of outdoor seating cools down the vibe and reminds one of a beer garden. But the stony staff and the occasional metal-detector wand create an undercurrent of hostility; the secluded and unlit parking lot never feels safe; the [...]
Shortly after Memorial Day weekend, I walked into the Dewey Beach Police station and asked the dispatcher for the complaint log. Hesitantly, she turned it over. I could see why: the scribbled ballpoint complaints of assault, disorderly conduct and noise reached into the hundreds. 1.7 miles of beach. Bedlam.
I started taking down dates, times and [...]
Don’t run from a bike cop.
Or if you run from a bike cop, get creative – try zig-zagging, sudden halts, or hopping a fence. Do not run in a straight line on pavement, huffing and sweating while a bored seasonal officer pedals along five feet behind you.
Seasonal officer Nate Hollis remembered the summer's first foot [...]
I wasn’t looking for company.
I was at HammerHeads for part of Monday, June 8‘s town council meeting, riding out the closed-door executive session by catching up on work and drinking Coronas. It was a slow night, but not too slow. I watched it gather momentum, following the cherries of cigarettes as they disappeared down side [...]
Last night proved that Dewey isn’t all puke-in-the-bathroom—a communal bonfire drew hundreds to the beach for free s’mores and good, clean fun. The background noise of adult conversation and giggling kids seemed to vindicate what town officials have been saying (with worried looks) for the past few months: Dewey is a family town.
