South Bethany doesn’t have the largest commercial district around, but what the town lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality.
Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY:
Richard Mais, ready to celebrate the 20th season of McCabe's Gourmet Market.
McCabe’s Gourmet Market has been a cornerstone at the York Beach Mall for going on 20 years now, providing fresh croissants, deli favorites and all manner of hard-to-find culinary treats for local food lovers.
The Mais family, Richard and Rebecca, started the business out of a desire to bring some specialty and imported foods to what was at that time a sleepy little beach town.
Both had some background in food service — Rebecca, born in Chestertown, Md., spent summers in Fenwick Island, working at her mother’s sub shop (where Nantucket’s is now).
Richard (born in Kansas City, Mo.) held restaurant jobs as a teenager, and went on to work in event planning for the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA).
He said they’d gone to different schools for psychology, but he met through his NACA job, at the University of South Carolina (USC). Mais was a staff member, his wife-to-be was studying to become a higher ed administrator.
They wandered Columbia, S.C. together, and Mais remembered many a shared meal at a little place called “The Gourmet Shop.”
Perhaps fond memories of those early days together stayed with them, because they eventually decided to launch something similar themselves.
After Rebecca completed her graduate studies, they moved to Charlotte, N.C. for a time, then married (1983) and moved back to Columbia. Mais said they’d gotten a call from Delaware in 1986 — his wife’s family needed some help with their rental properties.
They made a move to Fenwick Island and started up McCabe’s Gourmet Market.
It’s a family affair at the York Beach Mall — as Mais noted, his sister-in-law ran the shop next door (Made By Hand). They started out where that shop is now, but the gourmet business was going strong by 1996.
They moved into the larger space on the corner, put in a patio and incorporated a little indoor dining nook.
“We have things here you just don’t see – the fresh-baked breads and croissants, the pâtés and imported cheeses,” Mais pointed out. At first, they didn’t serve sandwiches, but he said they’d taken a look around, realized they had everything they needed, and decided to expand their services.
Now, Mais said they sold as much as 100 pounds of their famous chicken-walnut salad every day, during the summer.
He credited their successes at McCabe’s Gourmet Market to the high level of personal attention. “We listened to what the customers were interested in,” Mais said. “We tried out all kinds of things — there wasn’t much interest in some of them, but other items turned out to be great finds.”
McCabe’s offers everything from caviar to saffron, truffle oil to raspberry chipotle barbeque sauce.
They also carry the Krups line in kitchen appliances, cookbooks and a rather unusual selection of culinary gadgets. Need a lemon press, corn desilking brush or single-handed peppermill? Look no further.
In addition, they offer dried herb mixes and specialty sauces with their own personalized labels — a nice way for customers to take their experience at McCabe’s home with them.
Mais said they’d been unsure how well they’d fare when they left cosmopolitan Columbia for rural Fenwick Island nearly 20 years ago (with infant son Brandt in tow).
However, Mais said the regulars, and regular visitors, made it happen, and Fenwick turned out to be a great place to raise a family.
The stork dropped Peter off several years later, and Mais detailed both of his sons’ successes on the soccer pitch. Brandt is playing at Flagler College (St. Augustine, Fla.) and Peter (13) travels around with the River Soccer Club (RSC) Cosmos, he said.
The family is deeply involved with the RSC (near Roxana), although Mais downplayed his role. “I cut the grass sometimes, paint lines on the field — that’s my contribution,” he said.
In addition, Mais has served on town council a couple times, and with the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Department (Fenwick substation). “Rebecca already had friends around here, and family on her mother’s side, but that was nice for me,” he said. “It was a great opportunity to meet a lot of people.”
Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY:
Some of the oils available at McCabe's.
And, he’s had a chance to do some saltwater fishing, which was something he said he’d never experienced, being from the Midwest. Not in the summer though — once the busy season starts, it’s “sleep, eat and work,” for at least a couple months, Mais said.
However, he expressed no regrets at the family’s decision to run their own small business – it had given them flexibility to get involved in their community. “I don’t think we’ll ever leave,” Mais concluded.
To learn more about local specialty food offerings, call McCabe’s Gourmet Market at 539-8550.