The owners of the Cultured Pearl say they want to fill a void in Rehoboth Beach, that of the small, community-based convenience/grocery store.

Susan and Robert Wood, the Pearl’s owners, have taken over the former High’s convenience store at 305 Rehoboth Ave. and are turning it into Grub, billed as “Your Convenient Grocery Store.”

Susan Wood said she is targeting a Sunday, June 7 opening date.

“We were asked to take over the property about a year and a half ago,” Wood said. “We let it sit for about a year because we weren’t ready to do anything.”

Wood said she hopes the convenience/grocery store will be a precursor to a larger store down the road, depending on how it does this year.

“We toyed around with a bunch of different ideas,” she said. “Obviously, we’re restaurant people so our first thought was a restaurant. There’s a ton of restaurants in town already.” What Rehoboth doesn’t have is a year-round grocery store, she said.

Wood said among the ideas considered were a market, similar to the farmers market, where individual businesses came in and set up little stands. But the economy has made them wary of relying on 10 to 15 other business owners.

“In that time, McQuay’s closed and Beautiful Foods closed, which left us with no grocery store at all, year-round. Lingo’s is here but that’s not open for the winter. So we decided that’s what the area really needed.”

In her research, Wood realized it was almost impossible to make a year-round grocery store work. So, the Woods tweaked the idea to include deli sandwiches and some comfort food, while not competing against the Cultured Pearl. While it’s her intention to make Grub it’s own separate entity, the new store will have a symbiotic relationship with the Pearl to keep foods in the store and the restaurant fresh.

Wood said the long-term plan is to include a little restaurant inside Grub. Other ideas she said would be considered down the road include a small banquet facility and expansion of the building. In the short-term, Grub will be focused on the convenience/grocery store.

“We’ll have as much grocery as the space will allow,” Wood said.

While Grub will not have a lot of cooked items this summer, it will have produce, fresh-baked bread, cheeses, soups, salads, chili, sandwiches, a line of “Grab’ n’ Go Cultured Pearl Sushi,” breakfast sandwiches, ice cream and some basic cooked items such as hot dogs, sausages and pizza.

“It’s all going to be the quality of food that we use here at the Cultured Pearl,” Wood said.

She said the store was designed to provide a place where the locals can get groceries, without going onto Route 1.

“It’s for the locals. We’re trying to make it a local grocery store, not a summer-make-money-close-up place. That’s not what I want to be,” Wood said. “Overall, the locals are going to benefit, while the tourists will have the convenience of not having to go on the highway.”