New Delaware restaurants offer BYOB social club, dumplings, smoked cocktails and hot chicken, more
Here's a look at some new or new-to-you places that have opened in recent months and a few that are coming soon:
The BlueBird
500 Delaware Ave., Wilmington; thebluebirdwilmington.com
Veteran Wilmington restaurateur Dan Butler is teaming up with his longtime Toscana staffer Brian Walsh to open The BlueBird, a new downtown Wilmington cafe serving breakfast and lunch.
Butler said he plans to open the 300 Delaware Ave. cafe on Monday, April 22. The cafe is located in what is known as the WSFS Bank Center and takes the place of the former PureBread Deli.
Plans have been in the works for The BlueBird since September 2023. Renovations to the interior of the building began more than a month ago.
The BlueBird will have 60 seats indoors and have seating for 60 people outside on the plaza.
The restaurant will have banquettes, maple butcher block tables, high-top tables, booths parked in corners, and individual window seats facing the plaza. The BlueBird will be open Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but Butler said the hours and days could be extended after the restaurant is up and running.
The menu will include bagels, egg sandwiches, pastries and baked goods made on-site, panini, soups, salads, sandwiches, bowl dishes, and other healthy options.
Lavazza coffee will be served, but no alcoholic beverages.
Butler closed his Toscana kiosk at The Chancery Market food hall and bar in February to concentrate on The BlueBird. He last opened a restaurant in 2007 when he created Brandywine Prime Steakhouse at the former Chadds Ford Inn in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
Playa Bowls
4837 Limestone Road, Pike Creek; playabowls.com
Açaí (ah-sah-EE) a tropical, South American purple berry found in rainforests, is often touted as a superfruit. And it continues to be a hot food trend in Delaware.
Playa Bowls, a concept founded by New Jersey natives and surfers Robert Giuliani and Abby Taylor, offers acai, coconut and pitaya bowls, smoothies, cold-pressed brews, and juice drinks at over 200 stores.
A fifth Playa Bowls location in Delaware is opening soon in Pike Creek in the same shopping center as Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza.
It joins other Playa Bowls locations in Rehoboth Beach, East Main Street in downtown Newark, Middletown and Concord Pike in Talleyville.
According to its Instagram page, the Pike Creek location is scheduled to open in May.
The Haven Social
1215 New London Road, Landenberg, Pennsylvania; 484-720-8552; thehavensocial.com
The BYOB social club opened in November 2023 in Landenberg in the area known as "The Wedge" which includes the borders of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. The site had formerly been a concept testing space for Great Big Jerk, a takeout BBQ restaurant that opened during the pandemic. Great Big Jerk is now located in downtown Wilmington at 12th and Washington streets. It had formerly been the home of Rosenfeld's Deli.
The Haven Social is a concept from husband-and-wife team Chef Tim Bolt, who runs Great Big Jerk, and Mary Schleuter. The menu includes raw oysters, shrimp cocktail, oven-baked flatbreads, Buffalo chicken wings, crispy Brussels sprouts, lobster mac and cheese, smoked brisket, and sandwiches like the Nashville hot chicken. Sunday brunch has lobster Benedict, short rib frites with fried eggs, and blueberry pancakes.
There is a $10 corkage fee for wine; $5 charge for beer. The restaurant has limited parking so carpooling is suggested. The Haven Social is open from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursdays; 5 to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays. A $25 deposit is required for reservations.
302 The Local
19819 Coastal Hwy, Rehoboth Beach, 302-260-9468, 302thelocal.com. Soft opening mid-April; call to confirm.
Where Chaps Pit Beef once stood in Rehoboth Beach, say Chaps’ former franchisee, there will instead be something all-Delaware in its place. That’s both the promise and the name at forthcoming gastropub 302 The Local, which will open this month at 19819 Coastal Highway, next to the Rehoboth Beach location of Iron Hill Brewery.
There, brothers and co-owners Chris and Steven Desch will offer cold-smoked cocktails, hot chicken, crab cakes, blackened tuna and a cornucopia of smash burgers made with ingredients ranging from cowboy candy to whiskey-bacon jam. The cocktails will be designed by nationally recognized mixologist Ryan Minnick.
“We’re doing all fresh herbs, craft ice cubes, we’ve got a machine that’ll shoot smoke bubbles onto your drink. We’re pulling out all the tricks,” Chris Desch said. The idea, he said, is elevated comfort: taking the hearty meatloaf sandwiches or Southern-fried chicken that makes people feel at home and dialing the flavor up a little.
“We've got these bourbon-buttermilk chicken sandwiches that’ll blow your freakin’ mind,” said Desch. “Beautiful toppings, gourmet hamburgers and ahi tuna.”
The restaurant is due to open softly in mid-April, Desch told Delaware Online/The News Journal this month.
More: Crabcakes, cocktails and Southern-fried chicken coming to former Chaps Pit Beef
Mission BBQ
36740 Seaside Outlet Drive, 302-257-5292, mission-bbq.com. Grand opening April 23.
Wildly popular barbecue chain Mission BBQ is opening its first Sussex County location this month.
This will be the third location in Delaware for the Maryland-based barbecue chain, since the first location in Dover in 2016, and a second last year at Concord Gallery shopping center in Talleyville. Mission, founded in 2011 by former executives from Under Armour and Outback Steakhouse is well-known for its patriotic branding, charitable donations and pan-regional approach to barbecue.
Mission BBQ's third Delaware location, in Rehoboth Beach, will open this month in the Tanger Outlets, spokesperson Linda Dotterer confirmed earlier this month.
"We are excited to share that our location in Rehoboth Beach will hold its grand opening on Tuesday, April 23, 2024 at noon," she wrote. The Rehoboth Beach location is at 36740 Seaside Outlet Drive. As is traditional for Mission BBQ, the Rehoboth location will hold a military appreciation night on the Friday evening before the restaurant officially opens to the public.
On April 19, from 6 to 9 p.m. all sales proceeds will be donated to the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. The first 100 customers to purchase an "American Heroes" soda cup for $4.99 will win free BBQ for a year: This amounts to 52 gift cards redeemable over the next 52 weeks.
Another Mission BBQ is scheduled to open this year near Wilmington, at Kirkwood Plaza shopping center on 4433 Kirkwood Highway.
More: Mission BBQ opens third Delaware location this month. Another is planned this year
Ugly Dumpling
Projected to open by end of 2024, at 140 E Main St., Newark.
A Shanghai-style soup dumpling restaurant hopes to open in downtown Newark by the end of 2024.
Its featured specialty is hand-crafted Xiao Long Bao, known as soup dumplings. The century-old treat was born in the Shanghai suburb of Nanxiang and involves filling delicate rice noodle dumplings with a gush of savory soup.
The Ugly Dumplings chain is the creation of New York-based Vertex Hospitality Group, the company behind other popular Asian-influenced restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic region. These include Viet-Cajun seafood boil spot Hook & Reel, Korean-inflected BBQ and hot pot chain KPOT, and sushi and ramen spot Kinya.
Similar to a full-service Ugly Dumpling in Edison, N.J., Farrell said, the Newark location will have somewhere between 60 and 80 seats.
Crumbl Cookies
50 N. Dupont Highway, unit 10, Dover
Crumbl Cookies, the increasingly popular national bakery chain, celebrated the grand opening of its second Delaware store in Dover’s Capital Station on March 22.
The chain opened its first Delaware store in late June at Christiana Fashion Center, and a "coming soon" sign has been posted on the door of the new Dover location since last year. The business is known for its gourmet cookies, which come in a rotating variety of flavors and are delivered in pink packaging.
Leo and Carolyn Campero, the new owners of Crumbl Dover, said they fell in love with Crumbl Cookies while stationed in Phoenix, Arizona. So when Leo Campero was transferred to Dover Air Force Base in 2022 what was then the Crumbl Cookie-less state of Delaware, the couple "decided to share the Crumbl love with Kent County."
The store is next to Veronica’s Brick Oven Pizzeria and behind Starbucks. It's open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and from 8 a.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday.
A third Crumbl, in Prices Corner, will arrive in equally short order: The grand opening is scheduled for June 27.
El Nopal Mexican restaurant
617 E. Loockerman St., Dover
El Nopal recently opened its second Dover restaurant one block east of Route 13 in the former site of Tender Bones Ribs. The original El Nopal is at 627 W. Division St. Tender Bones' current location is at 504 Red Lion Road in Bear.
According to El Nopal's website, hours are Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The menu includes tacos, burritos, quesadillas, fajitas, tamales, soups, grilled chicken dishes and chicken flautas.
BurritoBar
20 N. Dupont Highway, Dover
Canada’s largest Tex-Mex restaurant chain with over 250 restaurants has opened a Dover location, only the fourth in the United States.
The company was founded in 2005 in Toronto. Known as BarBurrito up north, the chain is branding its U.S. restaurants as BurritoBar.
The Dover site opened earlier this month in the Capital Station shopping center at Division Street, behind Aldi, next to Walgreens. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
In a press release, Dover franchise owner Manish Patel said he’s excited to be among the first in the country to open a BurritoBar.
“There are other places in Dover you can get tacos and burritos, but I think BurritoBar’s menu is very unique,” Patel said. “They have their own sauces and salsa and they do a panini press style of burrito that helps keep everything together – it’s pressed tight enough for you to eat on the go.”
The restaurant also serves seafood like their popular “bang bang shrimp.”
Patel has experience in the food service business as co-owner of four Jake’s Wayback Burger restaurants in Delaware.
He said the Capital Station is “a prime traffic-heavy spot,” with great potential.
Pizza Hut
515 S. Dupont Highway, Dover
About four years ago after decades in business, the Pizza Hut closed on Route 13 north in Dover at Leipsic Road near Home Depot. The site is now a Citizens Bank.
But a new Pizza Hut has opened a few miles south on Route 13 near 84 Lumber and Winner Ford.
Flynn Group LP is the owner and operator of the new restaurant, along with over 970 Pizza Huts in 27 states including another Dover location at 1155 E. Lebanon Road.
The grand opening of the Route 13 store was Feb. 9.
With about 15 employees, the 1,432-square-foot restaurant features "Pizza Hut’s beloved menu items, a fresh new look and more modern, compact design,” said Randy Bates, Flynn Group vice president of marketing.
Hours are 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Customers can order online or on the mobile app for carryout, curbside pickup or delivery.
Sweet Sister's Fault
106 N. Cannon St., Seaford
Regardless of which sister is at fault, from the owners of My Sister's Fault in Milford comes Sweet Sister's Fault in Seaford. Say that a few times fast.
Angie and Rous Robles' Puerto Rican cooking is famed in Milford, where customers line up for their empanadas and cakes. The Seaford location, which opened in early April, focuses on desserts. The menu also features coffee and pan sabao, a Puerto Rican bread.
Right off High Street, the downtown location puts Sweet Sister's Fault in the area of several other acclaimed Seaford eateries, such as Doña Maria's Pupuseria and Bon Appetit.
According to the Sweet Sister's Fault Facebook page, they're regularly selling out, so go early and make a day of it. Hours are Thursday and Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
If you want to read more stories from Patricia Talorico, visit delawareonline.com/staff/2646617001/patricia-talorico You can find her on Instagram, X and Facebook. Email ptalorico@delawareonline.com. Sign up for her Delaware Eats newsletter. Reporter Ben Mace covers real estate, development and business news. Reach him at rmace@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: New Delaware restaurants include BYOB social club, burritos, dumplings
