Open doors

By Jonathan Starkey
Staff Reporter

	Coastal Point • JONATHAN STARKEY Visitors to the Chalkboard Tavern and Grille are greeted by ... chalkboards.

Just inside the door of the Chalkboard Tavern and Grille sits what else? A chalkboard, of course. In addition to the extensive menu offered by the new Bethany Beach restaurant and bar, that chalkboard offers a list of its specials daily. Usually, two entrees and one appetizer are extras on the menu, which has been well received by local residents since the Chalkboard’s grand opening on St. Patrick’s Day weekend, said owner Ken Heaps.

“People are raving about the food,” said the Baltimore native, who took over the spot where The Big Easy restaurant once sat.

Heaps, a builder/developer took over the restaurant space in mid-December. Since then, the restaurant has only been open from Thursdays to Sundays, lying low until late May, when the hectic summer season gets under way.

Starting yesterday, Heaps opened the Chalkboard, which features a head chef who formerly worked at another local restaurant, from 7 a.m. to close, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week.

“We’ve been slow,” Heaps said of the spring. “But the weekends have been picking up. It’s going to be packed,” he said of the Memorial Day weekend.

While Heaps said that his breakfast menu is rather basic, it offers something most others in the area don’t. From 9 a.m. on, seven days a week, the Chalkboard will serve alcohol. Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas should be the highlight of the Chalkboard’s breakfast menu.

The lunch menu will likely offer the same as its counterpart on the other side of the building. Along with the soups, salads and sandwiches served daily on the Chalkboard’s tavern half, specials will be posted on a dry-erase board, in and outside of the bar.

But it is the dinner menu at the new Bethany Beach spot that has been grabbing everyone’s attention, Heaps said. With a combination of steak, seafood and a full wine and beer list, he added, there is likely something on the menu for anyone. A Tavern Mix Grille, a $24 combination of a 6-ounce filet mignon and four large shrimp, has been a good seller. As has the Chicken Saltimbocca, a $19 dish, topping sautéed spinach, prosciutto, provolone and lemon-butter wine sauce on a fresh chicken breast, Heaps said.

And, in what isn’t much of a surprise in this part of the world, Heaps expects the single and double crab cakes to be a hit. Anyone can add a crab cake to any menu item for $9. Pork chops, a signature 14-ounce New York strip, salmon and more round out the highlights of the menu.

Locals and visitors will be able to get a small sampling of that menu from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on June 4 at the 7th annual Taste of Coastal Delaware, a food-tasting event sponsored by the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce. A plethora of local eateries will be on hand at the Marketplace at Sea Colony that Sunday to show potential customers what they have to offer. Tickets, which cost $30 in advance or $35 at the door of the event, can be purchased at the Chamber in Fenwick or at the South Coastal Library, Sedona or the Parkway Restaurant in Bethany.

No one has to wait, however, to sample the food at the Chalkboard, where entrees range in price from $17 to $37 and local blues band Lowercase Blues appears every Thursday, in the same spot they once occupied at The Big Easy.

And, after opening full-time next week, Heaps doesn’t think his patrons will wait to check out the new offering.

“It’s a good location. We’ll do well after Memorial Day,” he said, adding that he will keep the Chalkboard open year-round. “I think we can get enough clientele.”