Restaurant Reviews by Pat Fish: Restaurant review-Lewes' Version of Bethany Blues Gets Thumbs Down for Its Smell?

Lewes Delaware's Bethany Blues restaurant gets lots of pluses like its Bethany Beach parent. But the eatery loses because…why no baked potatoes?

And what's so weird about its smell?

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Bethany Blues-Lewes

Husband and I had visited the coast of lower Delaware’s most famous rib joint, Bethany Blues, a few years ago. Bethany Blues, named after its original home town base, Bethany Beach, moved up to Rehoboth, closer to our home here in Serendipity Shore in the swamps of Delaware.

Bethany Blues is a rib joint and as such I give it an overall grade maybe a C+, possibly a B-.

It’s not that their ribs are bad. Bethany Blues does serve both baby
Back ribs, husband’s personal favorite as well as “St. Louis pork ribs”, the larger ribs that I ordered and found very tasty.

There’s something a bit too sterile, too clean, too ordinary about Bethany Blues, especially the one here in Rehoboth. First, the place has NO smell at all. A rib place that doesn’t smell like ribs? I find it odd and I wonder where the hell the ribs are cooked.

Because as husband pointed out, they also do not serve baked potatoes. The restaurant does serve cornbread with a meal but I’m betting this cornbread wasn’t made in house. It wasn’t warm at all and was way too sweet. A decent cornbread should have a bit of a gritty texture to it from the cornmeal and really shouldn’t taste like cake.

The French fries served with the meal were fine as French fries go.

I had an interesting little side dish known as Sesame Ginger Slaw, essentially cabbage with a bit of shredded ginger doused with a sesame flavored dressing. While it was different, frankly I’d lean toward a more traditional slaw. The baked beans side dish weren’t so much either, okay but not filled with meat as promised.

I got an appetizer, six bucks, that blew my mind. It was billed as a tray of “meat sticks” with cheese cubes and it was so small as to be almost laughable.

The meat sticks were just beef jerky type affairs. They had a good taste but the entire appetizer looked chintzy although six bucks for the thing was probably a fair price. The cheese was very good I must add. If I owned a restaurant I’d be too embarrassed to serve that appetizer. No matter how fair the price, if it looks cheap and chintzy it’s just bad business.

The ribs, in both cases, were very good. Husband grouched that the baby pork ribs could have been meatier but hey, he ordered, and ATE, an entire rack. The St. Louis ribs were very meaty and very good. They were by no means spicy but I liked them and would give them a solid B+…maybe an A-.