Gilligan’s comes down in Lewes

Out with old, in with the new. The iconic Gilligan’s Waterfront Restaurant was under the claw Sept. 20, as demolition crews razed the building to make way for a new restaurant along the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal. 

Cheryl Tilton, Gilligan’s owner for the last 14 years, was on hand to watch the building get demolished. Construction will soon commence on a new Gilligan’s in the same location.

“After 14 years I’m finally going to get the rewards of a new building,” Tilton said at a Lewes Commercial Architectural Review Commission meeting in February. 

The new restaurant will be almost identical in size to the existing building. However, the space will be used more efficiently. Staying is the popular outdoor deck bar, though it will be repositioned to the center of the structure to be respectful of nearby neighbors. Outdoor deck dining will also remain.

Indoor dining for about 50 people will be split into two dining rooms on either side of the new indoor bar. The bar will sit parallel to the deck bar with a glass partition providing a canal view for patrons sitting inside.

“[Cheryl] and I believe there is a place in Lewes for casual waterfront dining that’s affordable for the residents and visitors,” said Joe Stewart, co-owner of the Inn at Canal Square and the Gilligan's property.

The new building will also allow Tilton to operate year round, something Stewart says has been impossible up to this point.

“Basically, the building was incapable of being winterized,” he said. “So with a seasonal operation, it limited [Tilton’s] ability to develop a full-time staff of people who would work year round. With this [new] building, she’ll be able to attract a loyal staff.”

Since Stewart purchased the property in 2000, very little has been done to improve the building. Gilligan’s is one of the more unusual restaurants in the area. The original structure was built into a boat that had sunk in the canal, Stewart said. The boat is said to have originated in Key West, Fla.