Long line at this popular Dewey Beach bar? There's a way around it, but you need one of these
Just as you might expect, the details about some of The Starboard's history is a bit hazy.
The popular Dewey Beach bar, best known for their pounder cups of Oranges Crushes, has been offering VIP cards to a select few regulars customers for years. But how far back does it go?
The man who started it, former owner Chip Hearn, can't help you with that.
"Oh, man, it was a way long time ago," says Hern, now 72, who owns The Ice Cream Store on Rehoboth Beach's Boardwalk and the Peppers hot sauce shop on Coastal Highway near Lewes.
We can narrow it down to his reign at The Starboard, which started when his family bought it in 1986 before selling it to the current ownership group led by Steve "Monty" Montgomery in 1999.
Montgomery, who started working at the bar early in Hearn's ownership run, estimates the program dates back to the earliest years of Hearn's time in charge.
How The Starboard VIP card started
Hearn says long lines were quickly becoming a problem at The Starboard when it grew from more of a local hangout to a nationally known beach bar, causing longtime customers to wait in lines along the sidewalk on Coastal Highway.
He got the idea from a bar down in Panama Beach, Florida, during a trip there for winter break. The bar was swarmed for spring break, but the customers they wanted to get in were still able to make it past the door while others waited.
"In their case, they wanted certain athletes and certain fraternities and sororities to get in," he says. "But we didn't care about that. We wanted regular customers. And it took on a life of its own."
Employees would give them out to their regulars, much like today.
"People would start asking, 'How can I get one?' And the answer was, 'Well, keep coming, keep asking and all of a sudden you're a regular,'" Hearn says.
Colorful cards and a separate VIP entrance
While the cards have a slicker look these days, not much has changed. They have always been plastic cards that admit one during the busiest times, doubling as something as a status symbol. A separate VIP entrance near The Starboard's Shark Tank bar is where the card-holders slip in.
The colorful cards themselves have become collectibles with their eye-catching designs ranging from a black Delaware license plate one year to their shark mascot making an Orange Crush another. This year's card is a nod to their popular duck claw crane machine, featuring an array of yellow rubber duckies.
The VIP cards ended up not only helping longtime customers get a barstool, but doubled as a gimmick to drive interest in the bar, making the hunt to get a new card each year a buzzed-about event.
On the bar's opening weekend, held around St. Patrick's Day, cards are available at the bar to reward the die-hard customers.
And for years, Starboard representatives also would fan out to major hubs where their customers live year-round, including Wilmington and Washington D.C., to give out the cards there, too. Those trips have since stopped, due to overwhelming demand on opening weekend..
A major VIP card change: No longer free
One major change has come to the VIP program in recent years: they are no longer free.
Montgomery decided to require a suggested donation of at least $10 for a card starting in 2022 with all the money going to the Rehoboth Beach Fire Company.
Has that calmed the clamor? Not at all.
All cards were snapped up at opening weekend this year. In fact, demand was so large that the bar's plan to offer online sales of the cards for a week had to be shrunk to a handful of days after more than 200 were ordered by out-of-towners.
FLASHBACK: The Starboard's cult following explained
After all, what is a VIP card if everyone has one?
"We want it to be exclusive because those are the people who are invested in this place. They are the ones we want in here. They are the ones who love this place and make it what it is," Montgomery says of the program, which raised $56,000 this year for the local fire house.
The cards have become so coveted that sometimes people will try to forge them, printing one up at home for themselves. Bouncers always can tell, but the bar's response might surprise you.
"I'm like, if you've gone through all that effort, come right on in," Montgomery says laughing before recalling another successful end-around when a customer pulled up with a 5-foot version of that year's VIP card affixed to his car.
Some VIPs don't need a card, just Montgomery's cellphone number
Just like that Panama Beach bar years ago, The Starboard is now a hang out for celebrities.
Everyone from Sandra Bullock and Denzel Washington to Luke Wilson and BET founder Robert Johnson has tipped one back at The Starboard. And so has ESPN's Scott Van Pelt, such a fan that he even has a sandwich named after him: The Scott Van Melt.
For them, there's no need for a physical VIP card on their hands. They just call or text Montgomery and he personally ushers them in through an even more exclusive back door.
So does Hearn have a super VIP card as a former owner? No, but he has Montgomery's number just like any other top-tier customer.
"I don't go out much anymore, though," says Hearn, whose bar-owning days are behind him. "And I'll be honest with you, those young kids at the door now don't have any idea who I am and that's OK with me"
Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at [email protected] or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and X (@ryancormier).
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Starboard's VIP program dates back decades in Dewey Beach
