Aqua: Behind the Chalk Board
A few days after the vicious Mother’s Day nor’easter chewed up Rehoboth’s beach and knocked down tree limbs all over town, I met up with Kevin McDuffie, one of the three owners of Aqua Bar and Grill on Baltimore Avenue. “The storm messed up one of our big umbrellas and blew down my greenhouse in the back, but overall, we weathered it quite well,” Kevin tells me. I glance around. The place had been freshly painted and looked great, ready for what everyone hopes, and thinks, will be a busy summer.
The hydrangeas, pansies, and Shasta daisies planted in silver galvanized metal tubs catch my eye too. Last summer, I obsessed over the sunflowers. Each of Aqua’s owners brings a different strength to the ownership group. Tyler Townsend manages staff and day-to-day logistics. Bob Suppies is the numbers guy. And Kevin focuses on ambience, décor, and the customer experience. As Aqua’s resident plant daddy, he also grows and tends the restaurant’s herbs, cherry tomatoes, and seasonal flowers in the greenhouse.
As much as I like to talk gardening, I hadn’t come to chat with Kevin about the merits of annuals versus perennials. At least not for this column. I was interested in the Aqua house. If you stand back and take a close look above the bar and behind the big marquee chalk board, you’ll see the shingled gable of a small house. I’d heard Kevin had lived on the property back in the day when it was a private home and I wanted to know more.
Rehoboth was founded originally as a Methodist camp meeting in 1872, a religious resort where the faithful could renew their spiritual and physical health by the sea. Worshipers constructed simple wooden houses known as “tent houses” around a tabernacle that stood at the western edge of town near what is today Grove Park, near the circle entrance to Rehoboth. The original camp meeting lost its steam as the new resort grew and became more secular. Many say it was due to the railroad bringing in people with no affiliation to the camp meetings. Drinkers! Card players! The women prayed and the men caroused. They still do.…
A second, short-lived revival occurred in the 1890s, centered around Baltimore Avenue. Again, the Methodists built their tent houses. The typical tent house was shingled, had an open porch, a living/dining room downstairs, and a low loft area upstairs that served as sleeping quarters. Kitchens and bathrooms were added later. They were basically little wooden boxes, seasonal housing without heat or air conditioning and never meant for permanent living.
To my knowledge, there are a few of these original tent houses left in Rehoboth today that are still private homes. One sits just to the left of Aqua at 57 ½ Baltimore Avenue. There’s one on Columbia Avenue and another on Grove Street. Most of the others have been torn down or significantly altered over the last 130 years. If you’re interested, the best-preserved tent house is the Anna Hazard Museum house on Christian Street. It was moved from Baltimore Avenue to its present location in the 70s.
By now you’ve likely guessed where this is going. Yes, Aqua started out as a Methodist tent house, constructed sometime in the early 1890s. “I stayed in the Aqua tent house one summer back during the late 70s,” Kevin tells me. “It was me, the bar manager from the Blue Moon, and a waiter from the Back Porch. I was in art college and waiting tables at Chez La Mer. It was cramped and I slept in the living room—it’s where the Aqua bar is now. The other guys used the two upstairs bedrooms. We shared a bathroom. It wasn’t fancy.… I recall wood paneling.… And I think there was a window air conditioner. We didn’t care because the location was great. We set up a volleyball court out in the yard and had people coming and going at all hours. It was wild.… Of course, we were young, and Rehoboth’s gay community was too.”
Not long after that summer, Kevin remembers the house was converted into a restaurant called Scalawags that served crabs and beer at picnic tables on the deck. Thirty-some years later, an enterprising gentleman by the name of Bill Shields purchased the business and converted it into the Aqua we know and love today with its outdoor drinking and dining, flowers, shirtless waiters, and casual and welcoming ambience.
Since its opening in 2005, this quintessential beach bar has been a runaway hit with the LGBTQ crowd and a mainstay on Baltimore Avenue. I can only imagine how much money I’ve spent there over the years. When Bill began thinking about selling the establishment in 2019, he spoke with the ownership of the Pines Restaurant across the street. Pines Partners Tyler Townsend and Bob Suppies had always been fans of Aqua and felt it would be a great complement to the Pines and to Baltimore Avenue if they kept it gay-owned. They brought in Kevin and put together an offer. It all happened very fast, and the new ownership group took over in the fall, right before COVID hit.
The new owners wanted to keep the essence of what Bill had created and what made Aqua so special. They gave the place a facelift by expanding and re-doing the deck and fence—goodbye sandbox—and updating the kitchen and bathrooms. New large garage-style doors created a better flow, blending the outside with the inside. And the purple light highlighting the gable of the old tent house is the perfect nod, I feel, to the place’s history. From the get-go, the fellas aimed to balance Aqua’s old Rehoboth charm with contemporary styling. This concept also extended to the menu and its mix of traditional pub food and healthy options. Honestly, the only food I remember at Aqua before the new menu was the queso and chips and that’s mainly because they helped break up a marriage.…
So, what’s on tap for the summer of 2022 now that COVID (hopefully) is in the rearview mirror? “More DJs and an updated menu,” Kevin says. “I’d love to host more events and perhaps even create some theme parties that harken back to the days when Rehoboth group house parties ruled the social scene.” Shirtless waiters? “We’re gonna try,” he promises. And the sunflowers? Will they be back? “I’ve already got them growing in the greenhouse out back,” Kevin assures me.
I can’t wait. Bring on the summer. ▼
Rich Barnett is the author of The Discreet Charms of a Bourgeois Beach Town, and Fun with Dick and James.