CBS3 SummerFest: Rehoboth Beach More Than Just A Beach -- It's A Shopping Mecca Of Its Own
REHOBOTH BEACH, N.J. (CBS) -- Rehoboth Beach is more than a beach. It's a shopping mecca of its own.
"In downtown Rehoboth, there are over 300 business fronts," said Carol Everhart of the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce. "Those can range from the restaurants, which is about a third of them, to boutiques, T-shirt shops. You have six blocks of business on Rehoboth Avenue.
"And you have all these little mews and commons, so you can go down these little alleyways that are filled with shops and that type of thing, all these little surprises. I don't know what you couldn't find."
Food comes from everywhere, from Hawaiian cuisine to French crepes to British fish and chips to Indian at Indigo, owned by Suraj Kumar.
"Whether we do a lot of business or less business, as long as we pay the bills, we'd like to be here," Kumar said.
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If the beach is in your blood, Red Mill Monograms will send you home with a souvenir, a custom sign laser-cut from PVC.
We found manager Devon Braune filling orders. The most popular item is a sign called the Tree of Life, but "everybody's a little bit different," he said.
Braune says Rehoboth Beach sees people from all over.
"If you look at the license plates around here, it's everybody from all over America," he said.
At Gidget's Gadgets, you can go retro: used records, vintage toys and funky memorabilia from yesterday and today.
The business succeeds because Rehoboth Beach is a year-round town, said owner Steve Fallon.
"This one kind of has something going all year round, so it's kind of, it's almost the perfect kind of place to have a little business," Fallon said.
Christina Hines was visiting for the first time.
"We love it. I think this is where we'll come. It's awesome," she said. "I love that it's easy to get onto the beach. There's lots of local foods, there's lots of local shops. It's just really easy with kids to be here."
One thing we heard over and over again: Rehoboth is a place for everybody.
"It's just really quaint and nice, and it's just welcoming," said Cathy Commentucci of Philadelphia.
Just do Rehoboth Beach a favor. Don't call it "the Shore."
"It's the beach," Commentucci said. "They call it the Jersey Shore, and they call the coastline the beach."