Simplers win Business of the Year honors

A prominent Rehoboth Beach family was honored for its contributions to the city’s hospitality industry when the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce selected the Simpler family and its Seaboard Hotels as 2017 Business of the Year.

The Simpler family, owners of Seaboard Hotels, started at the former Avenue restaurant, running a food service business on Rehoboth Avenue. Family patriarch Ken Simpler Sr. started his career washing dishes and gradually worked his way up to management before the restaurant closed in 1997.

In 2000, the Avenue would be reborn as the Avenue Inn, to go along with other Seaboard Hotel properties, the Atlantic View Hotel in Dewey and the Beach View Hotel in Rehoboth. The Avenue Inn recently underwent a large-scale expansion.

Simpler’s son, Delaware Treasurer Ken Simpler Jr., accepted the award on behalf of the chain. He said the property where the Avenue Inn sits has been in his family since World War II, when it was purchased by his great-grandfather, George Shockley.

“It’s a great honor to be recognized by your peers for what we do in the community as a business, as a family,” he said.