Sugar & Thread now open in Rehoboth Beach
Looking to combine their love for apparel and cozy cafés, sisters Dru and Reagan Buehler are bringing Sugar and Thread to Rehoboth Beach.
“It’s a collection of cool items and clothing presented in a coffee shop environment that features some of our favorite design elements of other shops we’ve come across in our travels,” said Dru.
The items sold for the boutique side of the businesses are hand selected and feature goods made by small, independent entrepreneurs, said Dru, who is also a personal trainer and nearing the completion of her college degree in communications. They have quality items that can’t be purchased anywhere else, she said.
Reagan created the menu for the downtown location, which has breakfast and lunch items, and will feature sweet treats at night during the summer. Downtown customers want to be able to grab their stuff and head to the beach, she said.
“The menu is simple, but good,” said Reagan.
The sisters already have two locations in the works. The first opened April 11 on the ocean block of Rehoboth Avenue, in what was most recently The Coffee House and Mug & Spoon before that. A second location is expected to open soon in Tanger Outlets Seaside.
The downtown location has apparel and other goods, but Reagan said it’s more focused on the food side of the business. Conversely, the outlet location has a small café, but is more focused on the boutique side of the business, she said.
Dru, 20, and Reagan, 17, are Beebe babies and Cape Henlopen High School graduates. Reagan, whose twin sister Milena is still a senior at the high school, graduated high school a year early, because, she said, she was ready to be done with school.
Dru said she and her sister couldn’t be doing this adventure without the help of their parents. It’s a family business and there’s been a lot of support, she said.
The sisters acknowledge their young age, but they said they grew up in a house where having an eye toward being an entrepreneur was encouraged.
“I like the idea of, long term, being my own boss,” said Reagan.
Looking to the future, five to 10 years down the road, the sisters have plans to try to license the business. The goal would be to provide opportunities for other young people to start their own business, said Dru.
“Hopefully, it will work,” said Dru. “It’s a risk, but it’s a risk worth taking.”
For more information and up-to-date hours of operation for both Sugar and Thread locations, 18 Rehoboth Ave. and 36454 Seaside Outlet Drive, Suite 1720, go to sugarandthread.com, call 302-381-6444 or email reagan@sugarandthread.com.
Chris Flood has been working for the Cape Gazette since early 2014. He currently covers Rehoboth Beach and Henlopen Acres, but has also covered Dewey Beach and the state government. He covers environmental stories, business stories and random stories on subjects he finds interesting, and he also writes a column called Choppin’ Wood that runs every other week. Additionally, Flood moonlights as the company’s circulation manager, which primarily means fixing boxes that are jammed with coins during daylight hours, but sometimes means delivering papers in the middle of the night. He’s a graduate of the University of Maine and the Landing School of Boat Building & Design.
