10 new Delaware restaurants offer everything from Mongolian stir-fry to takeout crab cakes

Restaurant operators are cautiously optimistic about sales this year, with nearly 8 in 10 predicting an increase (33%) or at least holding steady (45%) from 2023 levels, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Operators are slightly less optimistic about profitability, due to increased food costs and wages.

Here's a look at some Delaware restaurant and food businesses opening or coming soon:

Fusco's Water Ice

3926 Kirkwood Highway, Milltown

Fourth-generation Fusco's owner Joseph Staffieri opened a new Fusco's Italian Water Ice storefront in April. The store is in a former Starbucks off Kirkwood Highway near Farrand Drive.

For years, the family has operated a little red-white-and-green-painted seasonal stand on Union Street in Wilmington.

The menu? Water ice, of course. Soft serve ice cream. And fresh-baked tomato pie from Nick's Pizza.

Last August, Staffieri wheeled Fusco's water ice trailer to the parking lot of a defunct Casual Male XL store on Kirkwood Highway, about 300 feet from where the new Fusco's location now stands. The idea for the storefront was born as he got talking to the customers, and they told him they wished they could find Fusco's closer to where they lived.

Staffieri added lactose-free soft-serve ice cream to the menu at the Kirkwood location. He decorated the walls with pictures of family going back four generations. He also sells tomato pie from nearby Nick's Pizza. The pies are served room temperature, thick-crusted and airy as focaccia, covered in thick grandma-style tomato sauce.

A whole pie is $16. A single slice is $3, available between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Yummy Bowl

3226 Kirkwood Highway, Prices Corner Shopping Center; eatyummybowl.com

Called "the ultimate Asian fusion experience," Yummy Bowl will offer Mongolian stir fry, "authentic" ramen, sushi and Korean fried chicken.

An opening date has not yet been set for the Prices Corner Shopping Center site, but social media sites say the restaurant is "coming soon."

Yummy Bowl has taken over the former Two Claws location.

The chain offers casual lunches with build-your-own-bowl dishes, as well as stir-fry dinners. The menu includes sushi, sashimi, and maki; beef, chicken and shrimp ramen; and fried ice cream.

Yummy Bowl has locations in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia.

The BlueBird

500 Delaware Ave., Wilmington; thebluebirdwilmington.com

The BlueBird, a new downtown Wilmington cafe serving breakfast and lunch, originally was scheduled to begin welcoming customers on April 22, but the opening was pushed back.

The cafe opened in early May with a menu that includes bagels, egg sandwiches, pastries and baked goods made on-site, panini, soups, salads, sandwiches, bowl dishes, and other healthy options.

It's owned by veteran Wilmington restaurateur Dan Butler and his longtime Toscana staffer Brian Walsh. The 300 Delaware Ave. cafe is located in a building owned by the Buccini/Pollin Group in what is known as the WSFS Bank Center.

The BlueBird has 60 seats indoors and seating for 60 people outside on the plaza. Lavazza coffee is served, but no alcoholic beverages.

Sleeping Bird Doughnuts

The owners of Sleeping Bird coffee shop off Miller Road in Wilmington announced they are opening a doughnut shop.

The shop, strictly takeout, and grab-and-go with no indoor dining, will be in the white building behind Lucky’s Coffee Shop on Concord Pike. It's next door to North Wilmington Nutrition.

According to their social media pages, construction is ongoing on the interior but Sleeping Bird has been posting enticing photos of doughnuts. (Oh, those mocha buttercream doughnuts look delicious.)

Visit their Facebook page for updates.

Grotto Pizza Dewey Beach

1509 Coastal Highway (Delaware Route 1), Dewey Beach

The new, 5,500-square-foot Dewey Beach Grotto will serve as a prototype for all new Grotto Pizza buildings moving forward, President Jeff Gosnear said.

The new building features a contemporary style, including exposed ceilings and garage-style doors with screens that roll up for open-air dining. The signature Grotto look is still there, though, in the sports bar and red roofs and awnings.

Dewey Grotto is open Thursday through Sunday until mid-May when hours will expand. It's next door to the old (and now demolished) location.

Anura Wine Bar

1206 N. Union St., Wilmington

Frank and Colleen Pagliaro are hoping to open Anura Wine Bar in October next to FranksWine shop in Wilmington after renovating the interior and exterior of the space near the corner of Union Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

It had last been the home of a comedy club which closed in November 2022.

Frank Pagliaro has owned the building that also houses his wine/liquor store for 37 years. The space was known as Wilmington's longest-running nightclub spot and was once the home of The Alley.

The Anura name is a nod to the frog logo at FranksWine, known as Jeremiah. Anura refers to any of an order of amphibians comprising frogs, toads, and tree frogs.

The wine bar has a license to serve alcohol, and the Pagliaros plan to serve food.

Woody's To-Go

Woody's Dewey Beach, famous for its lump-meat crabcakes, has opened a to-go spot across the street.

The new shop is in the Ocean Winds plaza at 1905 Coastal Hwy. After a soft opening selling T-shirts and uncooked crab cakes only, the entire menu was expected to be available the week of Monday, May 13, according to a Facebook post.

Popular Woody's items include all things crab, including, of course, the crabcake, crab pretzel, crab dip, crabby tots and crab soup.

Grilliez

38015 Fenwick Shoals Boulevard, Selbyville

Grilliez opened earlier this month right outside Fenwick Island on Lighthouse Road/Route 54.

The menu is huge and includes bagels, acai and pitaya bowls, smoothies, wings, burgers, chicken burgers, cheesesteaks, rice bowls, pizza, shawarma, falafel and gyros.

"Mostly American with a touch of authentic Mediterranean food," co-owner Khaled Ahmad said of the menu. "There is something for everyone."

Grilliez is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with seating both indoors and out. DoorDash is available.

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Chili's Middletown

501 Merrimac Ave, Middletown, 302-565-1890, chilis.com.

Long under construction, the Chili's location in Middletown finally cut its ribbon in late March at the Merrimac Gateway project.

The restaurant had long been anticipated in the area, after a sign appeared on a bucolic lawn last year, announcing the new shopping complex with a hotel and multiple chain restaurants.

The Tex-Mex chain, founded in 1975, is famous for its sizzling fajitas, molten chocolate cake and an earworm of a classic jingle advertising "baby back, baby back, baby back" ribs and a newer jingle. The chain boasts more than 1,200 locations, but the Middletown Chili's is only the second in Delaware. The other is in Newark.

El Rodeo Loco

 2136 W. Newport Pike, Stanton, 302-543-8847.

Stanton Mexican spot El Rodeo Loco opened quietly in February, with expansive hours and an even more expansive menu. Breakfast items range from waffles and pancakes and crepes to eggs with chorizo, and a breakfast torta featuring eggs and avocado.

Lunch and dinner include the expected tacos and burritos and enchiladas, of course. But El Rodeo Loco is also a hive of fusion invention and Texas can-do spirit.

This means barbecue ribs, crab cakes, seafood nachos, mango-habanero hot wings, sausage-stuffed jalapenos, and chicken-and-avocado rolls in wonton wrappers. It might mean pork chops, steaks, seared scallops, Cajun seafood boils or salmon plates. Or it might mean wild daily specials ranging from birria ramen to cactus-stuffed chicken or deviled tilapia.

And it also means Mexican pasta — spicy, salsa-verde noodles that have long been all the rage in Mexico, where Italian food has long been incorporated seamlessly into the local flavor palette. And so if you've lived your whole life without penne verde, you needn't continue this deprivation.

You can find Patricia Talorico on Instagram, X, and Facebook. Email  [email protected]. Sign up for her Delaware Eats newsletter.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @MarvelMcNaught.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: New Delaware restaurants offer Mongolian stir-fry, donuts, crab cakes