Rehoboth Beach brags after Biden victory
“A president lives here,” Delaware’s citizens proclaim
This is supposed to be the offseason.
A cold wind whips down the boardwalk. Christmas lights blink and beckon. Bikinis and beach umbrellas are marked to sell. The only hint of summer is the tangy scent of vinegar-doused french fries wafting from the one Thrasher’s stand that has remained open.
Late fall and winter is when Rehoboth Beach typically gets to take a deep breath and fade from view for a few months. But not this year. An unseasonable energy is rippling through the town as business owners, restaurant workers, year-round residents and local politicians are still abuzz over the small community’s new connection to America’s highest office.
The election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States has turned the bright lights on this Delaware beach community where the president-elect and his wife, Jill, and their family have visited for decades and where they spent Thanksgiving at the dream vacation home they bought here three years ago. The notion that the Rehoboth beach house will soon be a regular presidential getaway has many who live here bursting with pride over their local boy who made good.
“I’m a registered independent, but I always voted Joe. I’ve always really admired the guy,” said Keith Fitzgerald, who moved to Rehoboth from Wilmington in the early 1970s and helped found the Back Porch Café. One of Rehoboth’s most popular fine dining restaurants, Back Porch has been frequented by an eclectic mix of Washington pols and visiting celebrities, including former first lady Laura Bush and the Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl.
Fitzgerald and his partner sold the restaurant last year, but he has remained in Rehoboth and couldn’t be more pleased that a town resident will soon reside in the White
House.
“Just the fact that we’ve got somebody from here that’s going to be president of the United States, wow. As a native son from Delaware, I have to admit I’m kind of proud,” Fitzgerald said. “I mean, it’s a pretty dinky little state. Not a lot going on. And now people in the country will know that we’re not the southern county of Pennsylvania anymore.”
Rehoboth was nicknamed the Nation’s Summer Capital after the state built a paved road across
Sussex County from Georgetown, Del., to Rehoboth in the 1920s, and a flood of Congress members and D.C. residents began making the beachside town their summer destination.
Mark Hamilton, who has operated a Grateful Dead-inspired shop carrying tie-dyed hippie clothing, jewelry, incense and rock-and-roll themed gifts on Rehoboth Avenue for more than 30 years, is excited about the extra cache a president will bring to the town.
“It’s big news for our little town, I’ll tell you,” Hamilton said. “He’s just normal Joe in this town, but still. There’s a lot of pride. Now we can say the president lives here.”
Along with the pride is an acknowledgment by many here that the Biden summer home could be good for business. Like many summer vacation spots, Rehoboth was hammered especially hard by the pandemic. Restaurants, bars and small businesses count on summer receipts to get them through the year and health restrictions limited earnings for many establishments. Biden’s election, say some who work here, has made them optimistic that business will rebound and the virus can be contained.
On Nov. 7, when the major networks announced Biden as the projected winner, Christie
Husband was working her shift as a waitress at The Egg, a popular brunch spot. She had waited on the Bidens numerous times and said she was always struck by how polite and unassuming they were. On his first visit to the restaurant a few years ago, Husband said Biden visited the kitchen after breakfast to thank the cooks and took a selfie with the staff.
“When he won I was just ecstatic,” Husband said. “Hopefully it does bring more tourists here next summer to reboot our restaurant business. COVID has really put a hurting on restaurants down here and hopefully his election will help turn things around.”
As the news spread through the restaurant, Husband and the staff cheered the result. “Then we went into the kitchen and did a shot for him,” she said.
Similar scenes were repeated across the town that day. Cries arose from the screened-in porches of several homes just off the main drag. “Make America America Again!” one homeowner on Munson Street yelled to passersby. “He did it! He did it!” a woman who lived across the street happily squealed from her porch.
A trickle of locals and visitors made a pilgrimage to Biden’s beach house in the North Shores section of Rehoboth. In small clusters at first, and then in larger numbers, people drove, biked and walked over to take selfies in front of the stately home. A small caravan of jeeps and minivans rode down nearby roads with drivers beeping in celebration.