City officials opened a new era in dining in Rehoboth Beach last week, but their chests aren't exactly swelling with pride. A month after denying a liquor license to a proposed Hooters restaurant, city officials reversed course, making downtown Rehoboth safe for chicken wings served with sexual innuendo. This image clearly played a role in city officials' thinking. Rehoboth has for years kept a lid on hearty-partying bars by insisting establishments with liquor licenses serve full menus.
Most Hooters serve only sandwiches, salads and fried chicken wings.
Nevertheless, commissioners met last week and voted again, to a new outcome. Nothing changed in the interim, except the restaurant's Pennsylvania-based investment group filed a Chancery Court lawsuit against the town. Attorney and Hooters investor Mark Patterson said some officials had misconceptions about Hooters, which he characterized as a family-oriented restaurant. Many people think it's a gentlemen's club. Many people think it's a bar that caters to interests that we are not at all like.