Visitors to Southern Delaware are in for some treats this year – they’ll find new activities, events, accommodations, venues, restaurants and lots more. Of course, everything they've always loved about Southern Delaware awaits as well. Here, in no particular order, are a just a selection of brand new – and new-ish - reasons to visit Southern Delaware in 2022:
Stay
Hyatt House Lewes/Rehoboth Beach: 17254 Five Points Square, Lewes. 105 rooms including 36 suites, pet friendly. The one-bedroom suites and studios have full kitchens. Other amenities include Indoor lap pool, outdoor patio with a fire pit and grilling station, H Bar, omelet bar breakfast, guest market, 24/7 workout room, 770 sq ft of meeting space. Designed for extended stays and families.
Avid Hotel Millsboro: 30266 Commerce Drive, Millsboro. 79 rooms. Pet friendly, outdoor pool, free wifi, free breakfast, 24-hour gym.
Hotel Bethany Beach 39642 Jefferson Bridge Rd, Bethany Beach. 101 rooms. Free breakfast, outdoor pool, fitness center, two blocks to beach, pet friendly. This family friendly property is ideally located in the center of the best sights, boardwalk eateries, and sunshine activities that the peaceful, seaside town has to offer.
Microtel Rehoboth: Opening Spring 2022.
New Event Space: Camp Arrowhead Retreat Center, 35268 Homestead Way, Lewes. Opening late spring or early summer, 2022. New 10,000 sq ft, 3 room Jane Clifton Ashford Center (capacity 375), new 4,000 sq ft pavilion, (capacity 250), Quail’s Nest Lounge (capacity 75). State-of-the-art building and kitchen in a secluded, protected area with a beach on a beautiful wooded property on Rehoboth Bay. Children’s summer camp with year-round event venue.
Play
Dickens Parlour Theatre: 31806 Good Earth Ln, Ocean View. This extremely popular attraction offering magic shows, musical performances, and other entertainment is moving to Ocean View and will open its new 5,000-square-foot venue (with a dining room to seat about 100 people and a performance room that seats about 90-95 people) in Spring, 2022. Located on the same property as Good Earth Market and Restaurant in Ocean View.
Brittingham Farms: 22606 Phillips Hill Rd, Millsboro. Visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/brittinghamfarms. Brittingham Farms will be open to the public beginning this summer with an on-farm store and lavender field experience. This fourth-generation grain farm includes 5 acres of farmland reserved for growing lavender and will be offering lavender essential oil distillation demonstrations as well as culinary buds and products for local restaurants. Offered starting this summer: Lavender field experience, weekly exercise class at sunset in the field with Julie Wender of Shore Barre Bethany, Farm to Table dinners, agriculture-related classes, farm tours and experiences alongside their Heritage Breed Leicester Longwool Sheep. These Leicester Longwool sheep were originally brought to Early America by George Washington, and their breeding program is a collaboration using rams each season from Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. They shear their flock yearly to be spun into yarn and also offer raw fleeces for hand spinners. Their woolen items are made by local artisans from the Lewes Historical Society. Also beginning in Summer 2022, they are open as a venue for farm weddings, family, or corporate events, etc. Their Lavender & Lambs Tour will be available for reservations soon at the website of their partner, Delmarva Discovery Tours.
Delaware Seashore State Park: Sun, Moon, & Bridge Night. 39415 Inlet Road, South of Dewey Beach. Saturday, April 16, 2022, 6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. Gather at the Indian River Inlet and experience what it feels like to be in the middle of a celestial event! Watch the sunset over the Indian River Bay from the top of the Indian River Inlet bridge, and then turn around to observe the full moon rise over the ocean. As you meander over the bridge, learn about the history of the inlet and the bridge at designated educational stops along the way, packed with vintage bridge photos and interesting pieces about the inlet’s past. Food trucks will be stationed on either side of the bridge, so come hungry! After darkness falls, join park staff on the northside beach for a bonfire and stargazing. If the skies are cloudy, the bridge walk, bonfire, and food trucks are still a “go”! If rain is in the forecast, please check the park’s Facebook page for updates. This event is free (with paid park entry) and no pre-registration is necessary. For info, call (302) 227-2800.
Delaware Botanic Gardens: Spring 2022 will be spectacular at the Delaware Botanic Gardens! In November, DBG volunteers helped plant 84 thousand species bulbs for naturalizing throughout the meadow. These bulbs will flower March through April, bringing early spring color and providing essential early-season nectar for pollinators. Additional new plantings include more than 30 small flowering trees that will flower this spring along the gardens’ woodland trails. They have also planted more than 100 new Oaks, Birch, and Pines. The Oak Trees will be in a new “Oak Grove” garden. All of this is in addition to the thousands of bulbs, shrubs, plants, and trees already in existence in the garden.
Delaware Cultured Seafood Oyster Tours: May through November. Different tours available. "Seed to Supper" tour takes participants through the entire lifespan of an oyster raised at Delaware Cultured Seafood. Start with a trip through the nursery, where they raise oysters from larvae to seed. Learn a thing or two about oyster aquaculture before climbing aboard the boat. Take in an earful of oyster knowledge, and smell the fresh ocean air as you ride out onto the farm. This is where the oyster magic happens! Sit back and let the oyster cowboys lasso a couple shuckers from the water below the boat you rode in on. Season permitting, we will catch crabs, and clams as well.
Delaware Aviation Museum Foundation (DAMF) Warbird Flight Adventures: Offers a limited time opportunity for guests to not only walk a mile in the shoes of the greatest generation and other heroes but soar on the wings of the legendary aircraft in the DAMF collection, including their B-25J Mitchell "Panchito", Cessna L-19/O-1 Bird Dog, and Aeronca L-16. Additionally, DAMF has partnered with the Capital Wing of the Commemorative Air Force, located in Culpeper, Virginia, to offer a unique opportunity to fly in a combination of warbirds not available anywhere else.
Oil Still Bleeds: A Relic and Remembrances of the Battle Ship Arizona – Delaware’s Forgotten Heroes of Pearl Harbor, Fort Miles Museum, Cape Henlopen State Park. The exhibit features a 650 pound steel fragment from the aft deckhouse superstructure of the Battleship USS Arizona. visitors can relive the experiences of more than 20 Delawareans who were at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Two large video screens show footage from the Pearl Harbor attack with sound effects, and the sinking and final resting place of the Arizona. Wall hangings throughout the room tell the stories and history of Pearl Harbor, the Arizona and Delaware during World War II. From the Cape Gazette: The Fort Miles Historical Association acquired the Arizona relic to create a Bookends of World War II exhibit to accompany a display of the USS Missouri gun barrel at the museum’s entrance. The Japanese leaders signed surrender documents under the gun barrels of the USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945. The museum now has relics from the start and end of World War II, one of only three known museums to have such a display.
Stay and Play (and Save!)
Stay at a participating hotel and bike or paddle Southern Delaware’s scenic land or water trails while receiving exclusive offers from restaurants, breweries, distilleries and shops. It’s easy and can be arranged conveniently on your phone through one app. When making your hotel reservation, reference the Southern Delaware Bike & Stay Package or the Southern Delaware Paddle and Stay Package. After booking your package, you will receive a code upon check-in that gives you access to an interactive trail map and special offers from area businesses. Pick your route and start cashing in on your journey!
Eat & Drink
Bramble & Brine at the Buttery: 102 2nd St., Lewes. Opened in December 2021 by restaurateur Megan Kee (LaFable, Dalmata Italiano, Houston White Co) Bramble and Brine at the Buttery is a charming restaurant with several dining rooms and the ribbon-clad Pink Pony bar. The menu features a mixture of appetizers, small plates and entrees.
Lewes Brewing Co.: Savannah Road, Lewes. Projected to open Fall, 2022. 1145 Savannah Road, Lewes. Brewery operation and tasting room will have indoor and outdoor seating and stations for cyclists to hydrate.
Savoring Our Coastal Heritage: Friday, October 7, 6 p.m. Newly adapted and expanded in the post-COVID world! Tour the historic Indian River Life-Saving Station, one of the oldest oceanfront buildings along Delaware's coast, and learn about the daily lives of the surfmen that served at the station and the heroic rescues they performed. Then sit down to a locally-sourced dining experience, with a menu inspired by what the surfmen may have been eating around the turn-of-the-century. Menu may include anything from steamed clams to muskrat stew! Top off the evening with a lantern-lit walk on the beach to hear local shipwreck tales, full of tragedy and mystery. Tickets available at destateparks.com by September 1, 2022.
Starboard Claw: Opening 2022 in the former Hammerheads Dewey Beach property. Two-level restaurant with outdoor dining at the former site of Hammerheads in Dewey Beach. The restaurant will feature ribs from Bethany Blues, brisket, crabs and the triumphant return of Ed’s Famous Chicken.
Dickens Parlour Theatre: See listing under “Play”
Bethany Bay Brewing: Opening 2022. Bethany Bay Brewing, 38450 Hickman Road Ocean View.
Ocean View Brewing: Ocean View Brewing Company, 85 Atlantic Ave, Ocean View, a new brewpub by the Rehoboth-based hospitality company SoDel Concepts, will be opening in spring 2022. Pub-style sandwiches, light and refreshing bowls, and dishes suitable for sharing. It will be open for lunch and dinner.
Agave Mexican Restaurant & Tequila Bar: 19178 Coastal Highway, Rehoboth Beach, (302) 493-3273. Lounge, tequila bar, and Mexican cuisine. New Rehoboth location of this very popular Lewes restaurant. Experience exquisite food prepared with the freshest ingredients. Strategic partnerships with local food and fish markets ensures the freshest ingredients—every single day.
Lewes Oyster House: (Coming Soon), 108 2nd St STE 1, Lewes. From the Rehoboth Foodie, “DelawareToday’s ‘Best of Delaware’ award-winning chef Sean Corea and hospitality Swiss Army knife Tom Little will be joining forces once again as members of the restaurant management team opening the Lewes Oyster House located in the iconic Walsh Building on Second Street in Lewes.”
Hammer & Horns Food Truck: Brimming Horn Meadery, 28615 Lewes-Georgetown Highway, Milton. The meadery has its own new food truck now Open every Thursday - Sunday. Open times match with Meadery. Serving Raclette cheese sandwiches, potatoes stuffed with BBQ pulled pork and chicken, burgers and fries, sausages, falafel, gyros and fried turkey legs and more.
Pizza Machine: Near the intersection of Harbeson Road and Route 9, Harbeson. Dewey Beer Company has now opened its own pizza joint next to its brewery in Harbeson. Wood-fired pizzas and salads. Serves on a to-go order basis only. Customers at the brewery are welcome to eat there. Those not stopping in for a drink can order to-go via phone or on Pizza Machine’s website.
Taco Reho: 18784 Coastal Hwy, Rehoboth Beach. Opened in late fall of 2020, After 7 years, the award-winning, mobile food truck has found a permanent home to serve So-Cal inspired tacos, burritos, and street food in Southern Delaware. Complete with a torteria making fresh tortillas daily, the brick-n-mortar location exudes their love for tacos & music.
To keep on top of all the latest Southern Delaware news, visit Southern Delaware Tourism at www.VisitSouthernDelaware.com and follow us on Instagram (@VisitSouthDel and @CraveSouthDel) or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SouthernDelawareTourism.