When you visit Southern Delaware in 2020, you'll find new accommodations, activities, events, restaurants and lots more! Of course, everything you've always loved about Southern Delaware awaits as well.

Here, in no particular order, are nearly 40 brand new – and a few new-ish! - reasons to visit Southern Delaware in 2020...

There’s an App for That!

SouthDel Sidekick: Southern Delaware Tourism (SDT) recently released SouthDel Sidekick, a new web-based app designed to enhance the visitor experience. You can easily save the app to your phone or tablet home screens without the hassle of downloading it.

This user-friendly app contains tons of information – right at your fingertips when you’re out and about exploring Southern Delaware. You’ll find destination information including awesome Super Deals, local attractions, events, entertainment, restaurants, activities, weather reports, and more.

The Sidekick app includes GPS functionality and integrates with TripAdvisor and Google Maps, allowing you to find nearby attractions and businesses.

To access the app, go to http://www.SouthDelSidekick.com on your smartphone or tablet and click on Add to Home Screen. You’ll be asked if you wish to register. You don’t have to register to access information, but if you do register, you will be able to “favorite” things and you won’t have to enter your email address when claiming Super Deals in the future.

Culinary Coast

Opening in time for summer 2020, visit Grain Craft Bar + Kitchen, the new eatery at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry terminal. This year-round dining destination will offer a mix of indoor and outdoor seating options, unparalleled water views, and an adjacent activity area to include a fire pit, pier, pergola, picnic tables, benches open green space and children’s play structure. Parking is free and Grain is accessible by boat, bike or car. Grain will offer a polished casual menu, an extensive craft beer and cocktail menu, and live entertainment.

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Beachside Grill, next to Catcher’s and Hotel Rehoboth in downtown Rehoboth Beach, has been sold and will become Port 251, an Italian aperitivo bar, in late March or early April. Port 251 will be open seasonally, probably until late October.

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Coho’s Market & Grill will open this spring, replacing Grub Grocery at 4^th Street and the Avenue in downtown Rehoboth Beach.  Coho’s will offer deli delights to satisfy breakfast or lunch cravings, prepared foods, deli & breakfast sandwiches, party trays, gift baskets and more.

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Tequila Real, a new Mexican-themed tequila-centric restaurant recently opened at 122 Mulberry Street in Milton.

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The banquet hall adjacent to Nalu Surf Bar & Grill in Dewey Beach has been razed and will be replaced by a 1,500 square foot outdoor patio, slated to open this spring. This extension of Nalu will offer guests outdoor seating with tiki-style tables, a waterfall and palm trees.

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Revelation Craft Brewing Company of Rehoboth Beach will open a much-anticipated additional location in the former home of 16 Mile Brewery in Georgetown in late spring. The local brewery is known for their wide variety of award-winning ales, lagers, sours and even gluten free beers. This new buildout will include a state-of-the-art brewing space, an outdoor area and a full restaurant for which Revelation has partnered with Hari Cameron and the team at Grandpa Mac to establish "Grandpa's Kitchen at Revelation Brewery.”

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Check out the recently opened Hideout Arcade Bar & Grill on northbound Coastal Highway near Midway. The Hideout is an adult entertainment venue for games, food, drinks and fun from classic arcade games to regular bar games like pool and darts. Over 15 TVs to watch your favorite sports team, a unique menu, and full bar complete with adult milkshakes (hard shakes).

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Thompson Island Brewing Company is an independent craft brewery and restaurant that celebrates the coastal Delaware lifestyle. Located in Rehoboth Beach next to sister restaurant, Bluecoast Seafood Grill & Raw Bar, Thompson Island is named after an island in the Rehoboth Bay. The restaurant features dining room, bar, porch, and beer garden with ping-pong and bocce ball. The beer menu showcases original brews along with rotating taps featuring other local breweries, and their nationally recognized culinary team draws inspiration from local farms, beaches and bays, consistently serving beautiful, simple food and fresh homemade beer.

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Evans Farms on Seashore Highway in Bridgeville is home to a large on-farm market as well as The Frozen Farmer, an on-farm creamery and sorbet shop. In addition to their fabulous farm market and Frozen Farmer offerings, Evans Farms will offer a U-Pick Strawberry Patch in 2020, slated to open to the public in May, 2020.

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Owners of Milton’s Suburban Farmhouse Coffee House will open The Foxhole in late February or early March at 102 Federal Street. The restaurant will offer heavy appetizers, charcuterie boards, and a dinner menu that will change up weekly, along with an alchemy style spirits bar with wines and Dogfish Head beers and spirits, food and drink pairings, flights, muddled fruits for wines and drinks, pickled olives and more, and Mimosas and Bloody Mary’s with Sunday brunch. The Farmhouse will reopen in early to mid-March as a full functioning breakfast restaurant with table service offering specialty coffees, espresso, lattes and breakfast items including baked goods, eggs to order, omelets, sausage gravy, pancakes, French toast, scrapple and more. All the favorite Suburban Farmhouse sandwiches, melts and pizzas that customers have come to love will move to the Dough Bar at 112 Federal Street in early spring. The Dough Bar menu will include scratch made pizzas, fresh wraps and salads, subs, and will expand to include more Italian eatery sandwiches and pastas. Delivery will be available within a six mile radius.

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Kicking off the new year, Brimming Horn Meadery has joined up with award-winning chef Robert Leggett and his newest concept IN FLAMMEN. Chef Robert was winner of Pressure Cooker on the Cooking Channel, has been featured on the Cooking Channel’s Eat St as well as on Food Network, and writes for Philly Beer Scene Magazine’s Cooking with Beer.  Every Saturday at Brimming Horn in Milton, Leggett will make a variety of wood-fired German flatbreads called “flammkuchen”, literally translated as “flame cake” or “pie cooked in flames”, which is a dish created by German farmers composed of bread dough rolled thin and then covered with fromage blanc or crème fraiche, caramelized onions and lardons (bacon).  “Mead makes me think of open pits, flames, natural cookery & wielding fire. Mead is the inspiration for IN FLAMMEN, “ says Leggett.  Brimming Horn is one of only a handful of places on the East Coast where you can get IN FLAMMEN, where it’s available every Saturday from noon until sell-out.  (IN FLAMMEN is cash only.)

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The extremely popular Agave Mexican Restaurant’s much anticipated second location in downtown Rehoboth Beach is projected to open in Summer 2020. The first location on Lewes’s Second Street opened in 2008.

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Dogfish Head Craft Brewery launches the Dogfish Head Run Club for beer drinkers, running enthusiasts and those off-centered folks seeking a healthy balance of work and play in their day-to-day lives.  This one-of-a-kind, online run club was created with both runners and beer lovers in mind and is a virtual community for people of all kinds, from all corners of the world, that is accessible via their website. It’s free to join, and members will have access to a myriad of monthly training tips, workout regimens, inspirational advice and nutritionally-balanced recipes (some even include beer pairings), all carefully curated by the program’s ambassador and American long-distance runner, Shalane Flanagan. A four-time Olympian, Flanagan’s career is decorated with noteworthy accomplishments, including winning a silver medal for the 10,000m at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, becoming the first American woman in 40 years to win the New York City Marathon in 2017 and releasing two New York Times best-selling cookbooks, Run Fast. Eat Slow. in 2016 and Run Fast. Cook Fast. Eat Slow. in 2018.

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Dogfish Head’s New & Notable Offerings: Throughout 2020, Dogfish Head plans to release more than 160 unique products – everything from its classic, nationally-distributed brews to a myriad of limited-edition, small-batch beers available only at its coastal Delaware properties. New and notable national releases include Vibrant P’Ocean (4.7% ABV), a blended sour brewed in collaboration with Belgium’s famed RODENBACH brewery boasting tart, dry flavors of jammy berries and floral lemon; Sun-Day-Feels (6.5% ABV), a brunch-inspired, beer-mosa sour brewed with pureed peaches, wine grapes and a medley of citrus fruit; Campfire Amplifier (7.5% ABV), a s’mores-centric milk stout brewed with marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate and a touch of smoked malt; Costumes & Karaoke (8.0% ABV), a complex oat cream ale brewed with turmeric, ginger, yellow cardamom, cinnamon and smoked star anise, and aged on Madagascar vanilla beans.

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Play (Attractions, Arts & Entertainment, and Events)

 

The Delaware Botanic Gardens at Pepper Creek (DBG) in Dagsboro will Open the Garden Gates for its first full year of operation on March 17.  On April 3, attend Frolic in the Folly: A Celebration of Spring Bulbs from 5 – 7 p.m. Enjoy an evening stroll through Delaware Botanic Gardens’ Folly Garden, planted with 30,000 spring and summer flowering bulbs, perennials, shrubs and trees. The Folly Garden was designed around the ruins of the property’s early 20th century farmhouse. Enjoy music, refreshments and cheer as you are immersed among the spring flowers. Also this spring, DBG will debut 65 native azaleas planted in December that were donated by Ernest Koone of Lazy K Nursery in Pine Mountain, GA. DBG will offer workshops, lectures, events, classes, and tours throughout the seasons in 2020.

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The National Burrito Day Eating Contest will be April 4 from 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. at Taco Reho on Coastal Highway. Join Taco Reho as they celebrate National Burrito Day in epic fashion with a burrito eating contest. Competitors will race to see who can eat a 3-pound burrito the fastest.

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Washed Ashore:  Art to Save the Sea – See this exciting sculpture exhibit at Rehoboth Beach’s Tanger Outlets Seaside from June 1-Aug 31, 2020.  View larger-than-life sculptures of jelly fish and other marine life made entirely of plastic trash collected from our oceans by WashedAshore.org.

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Clear Space Theatre in Rehoboth Beach announces an exciting season of shows for 2020, from classic musicals including KISS ME KATE and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES to contemporary shows including SISTER ACT, URINETOWN and CARRIE the Musical, plus a holiday production of ELF, Clear Space continues a tradition of live theatre at the beach.

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The History Book Festival, which will take place September 25 – 27, 2020 in and around Lewes, will host a series of live author events leading up to this year’s festival. The first event will be An Evening with Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and The Vile, a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz, on Tuesday, March 17 from 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at Cape Henlopen High School. Larson is the author of five national bestsellers: Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm, which have collectively sold more than nine million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries. For information, call Biblion Books at 302-644-2210.

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The Big Chill Official Summer Kickoff Celebration will be Saturday, June 20 from 5 – 10 p.m. The Big Chill Beach Club in Bethany Beach celebrates the start of summer on the evening of the summer solstice. This family friendly event will focus on all things summer including live entertainment, a summer cocktail contest, activities for the kids, and the best sunset views at the Delaware beaches.

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2020 marks Coastal Concerts’ 21st year of presenting world class classical music in Southern Delaware. For this season, Coastal Concerts has developed a lineup full of musical diversity, starting with a string quartet with oboist in January, followed by a horn trio in February, a baritone with piano accompaniment in March, a violin-bass duo with an eclectic repertoire in April, a large Early Music ensemble in October, and finishing with two pianists, a cellist, and a percussionist in November.

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Heidi Lowe Gallery is rebuilding their 328 Rehoboth Avenue location and will have more space for their wedding ring workshop, group classes, personal studio, and enhanced gallery space to display Heidi’s work as well as jewelry made by artists all over the U.S. when they reopen in November. Until then, all classes and appointments will take place at their temporary location, 17522 Ward Avenue, Lewes, DE 19958. 

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The Big Chill’s Great Pumpkin’ Chunk will be held on Sunday, November 8 from 1 – 4 p.m. Participants compete to see who can throw a pumpkin the farthest using only their bare hands. There are Mens and Womens divisions where each contestant throws two 15 – 18 lb pumpkins with a combined total of their two throws to determine finalists. Games, live music, adult beverages. Proceeds benefit Autism Delaware.

New and Renovated Accommodations/Venues

 

Accommodations

 

Opened in 2019: Tru by Hilton in Georgetown. Opening in 2020: Home2 Suites by Hilton, Ocean One Plaza and Coastal Highway, Lewes. (Early Summer); Residence Inn by Marriott, Rehoboth Beach, Route 24, across from Beebe outpatient center. (Late Summer); Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Kate’s Lane, Midway, Rehoboth Beach. (May, 2020); Tapestry Collection by Hilton, 1501 Coastal Highway, Fenwick Island. (Summer)

 

Event Venues 

 

Planning a wedding, a family reunion, a corporate retreat in 2020? There are some unique new venues opening in Southern Delaware in 2020. Check them out!  

 

Lighthouse Cove Event Center: Lighthouse Cove Event Center is a brand new bayside banquet, wedding, and special event venue at its mixed-use Lighthouse Cove development in Dewey Beach, Del. The newly unveiled venue includes 14,600-square feet of flexible indoor and outdoor event space overlooking Rehoboth Bay, as well as newly expanded beach space for wedding ceremonies. Guests will also enjoy a 4,340-square foot ballroom, 3,020-square foot pre-event space for cocktail hours and other gatherings, and nearly 10,000-square feet of outdoor patio space where eventgoers can revel and take in beautiful sunsets over the bay. Lighthouse Cove Event Center also features large, state-of-the-art conference board room space, making it an ideal home for professional events. The project also includes a newly designed and remodeled Lighthouse Restaurant, a new bar on the property deck known as Sunset Bar, additional parking in the interior garage, and Dewey Beach’s first-ever recreational baywalk. Lighthouse Restaurant and Sunset Bar will open summer 2020.

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The Barn at Vanderwende Acres, a former dairy barn turned into a rustic, elegant wedding venue that opened in 2019 offers picturesque farm land views. Dance the night away by the fire lit patio as the sun sets over the round top roof barn. Offering an array of options and a network of trend focused vendors, Vanderwende Acres offers couples exclusive use of the property the day of their wedding along with event coordination service offered by their in-house Event Coordinator.

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The Great Dune Overlook Events Venue at Fort Miles Historic Area in Cape Henlopen State Park is a new events venue with incredible views of the Atlantic Ocean and miles of picturesque dunes all surrounded by historic Fort Miles. The versatile venue offers both an outdoor pavilion and indoor area and is available for weddings, concerts, meetings, reunions and many other types of events and gatherings. The Fort Miles Historical Area is a former World War II military base that was a key piece of our nation's coastal defense from World War II through the early 1970’s. Today, Fort Miles is home to the Fort Miles Museum, encompassing a gun battery, six barracks buildings, a fire control tower, an orientation building, and an artillery park.

 

Newly Renovated

 

The pet-friendly Lazy L at Willow Creek Bed and Breakfast in Lewes has undergone significant renovation in the off-season and is now accepting bookings for the season for their refreshed B&B. Guests can expect updated decor, bathroom renovations, and new flooring, among other things.

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Lighthouse Beach RV Resort, Long Neck:  While they did open for the 2019 season, construction was not complete.  Construction has been completed and they will be ready to open anew for the 2020 season with full amenities. The pet-friendly family camping resort offers seasonal and overnight RV sites with full hookups and 10 rental cottages. Amenities include a full bathhouse with second story gathering space and game room, a pavilion for parties, bingo, outdoor entertainment, zero entry salt water pool with splash park and hot tub, 18 hole mini-golf course, dog park, walking path, and beach area along with a crabbing and fishing pier. They plan to add kayak rentals and a park / outdoor gathering space at one end of the interior lagoon this spring.

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Bellmoor Inn & Spa, Rehoboth Beach: They’ve transformed their spa to include new furnishings and menu items for guests. These include but are not limited to the new Gentlemen's beard facial, CBD massages, and Reiki services. They also have a brand new retail line to offer as well as specific services for group, social, and corporate clients. New furnishings include a redesigned lobby, fresh paint, and upgraded equipment.

 

Anniversary Celebrations

 

The Jolly Trolley celebrates 50 years of safe and reliable service to the Delaware Beaches and beyond in 2020. Jolly Trolley began in 1970 as a tour service throughout Rehoboth & Dewey Beach, and has expanded into the now iconic Fixed Route Shuttle & Charter Service.

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Dogfish Head: A monumental year for Dogfish Head, 2020 marks the brewery’s 25th anniversary. Keep an eye on www.dogfish.com  for updates on all the off-centered celebrations to come!