Hobos restaurant in Rehoboth closes

Hobos restaurant in Rehoboth Beach has closed its doors.

After seven years in business, owner Gretchen Hanson said she is stepping away from the Baltimore Avenue restaurant in order to spend more time with her two daughters.

“I didn’t want to go the whole month long where me and everyone cries,” she said of her decision to close the restaurant.

Hanson said she no longer could go on working 12- to 14-hour days, seven days a week, at the restaurant. She said she still plans to teach cooking classes and will do catering work after taking a few months off. Hanson said her elder daughter is soon to begin selecting a college, something she wants to do together after she missed so many of her daughters’ life events.

“It’s so hard to do this job and have a family. It’s really a job for people with better balance,” she said.

Hanson said she’s a lifelong visitor to Rehoboth, starting Hobos in 2009 after moving to Rehoboth full-time. She is originally from California, but Hanson’s grandparents had a beach house in Rehoboth where she used to spend her summers.

“The stock market crashed, and I needed a job,” she said of Hobos founding.

Hanson said employees of Hobos have all found jobs at other places, which she said was another reason not to linger on for a farewell tour.

Hanson said her decision to close was not affected by negative publicity over a May 2015 incident when an autistic child was asked to leave a public bench in front of Hobos, nor by a civil suit filed by a former employee claiming he was not paid. That suit will go to trial Wednesday, Nov. 2, in Georgetown. She said those problems are part of the ups and downs of owning a restaurant, but her decision was motivated by a desire to move on and spend more time at home.

“The only thing I’ve given up is the actual physical space,” Hanson said. “I will have other forums. It’s my home. I’m not leaving. I’m just going to do something different.”

“I’m just in a place of regrouping,” she said. “I’m tired of living in the public eye. I just want to be quiet.”