Dewey Beach
Small Incorporated Beach Town In Sussex County Between The Atlantic And Rehoboth Bay, Known As The Delaware Coast'S Bar And Live Music Town · Dewey Beach, Delaware
Dewey Beach is a tiny town, only a couple of blocks wide and about a mile long, squeezed between the Atlantic and Rehoboth Bay just south of Rehoboth Beach. It is the party beach of the Delaware shore. In summer it fills with young adults, many of them sharing group rental houses for the season or a week, who spend the day on the ocean beach and the evening moving between bars with live bands, DJs, decks and cheap drinks. The best known is the long-running Starboard, famous for crowded weekend daytime drinking, and on the bay side there are bars and restaurants with sunset views over the water, some with a music stage. By day the bay also draws people to rent jet skis, kayaks and paddleboards. The town has firm rules about drinking in public, noise and behaviour at rental houses, and the police enforce them heavily in summer. Coastal Highway, Route 1, runs through the middle and is dangerous to cross at night. A seasonal trolley connects to Rehoboth. Out of season Dewey is almost silent, with many bars shut until spring.
Coastal Highway (Route 1), Dewey Beach, Delaware, 19971, United States
Dewey Beach is a town, so there is no gate or ticket, and the ocean and bay beaches are open to walk on, but the town's nightlife runs almost entirely to the season. Most bars and bands work at full strength from about Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day, with a burst of opening parties in May and a few big weekends in September; many places are closed or open only on weekends from late autumn to early spring. Bars in Delaware must stop serving by a legal closing time in the early hours of the morning, and last call and the clear-out come sooner than many visitors expect; confirm how late each place runs. Lifeguards cover the ocean beach from around Memorial Day to Labor Day during daytime hours only. Paid parking through meters and a phone app applies on town streets in season, and residential streets have permit-only rules; confirm dates and zones. The seasonal trolley between Dewey and Rehoboth and the DART beach bus run in the summer months only, typically into the late evening, and do not run in winter; confirm the current timetable. Beach rules, including the ban on alcohol on the sand, apply at all hours.