Summer was a time when you’d run into your Baltimore friends at a place like the old Royalton Hotel in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The Royalton, and its later incarnation, had a long, happy run until the bulldozers took the place down two years ago. It’s now a parking lot with a view of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Royalton in the 1960s and 1970s was delightfully out of touch. The rooms were small and the baths could be down the hall. It had a screened front porch full of rocking chairs. The geraniums in its front planter were bright red. You could take your breakfast and dinner in the hotel dining room, where alcohol was never served or mentioned. If you required air conditioning, open a window.
In short, it was a classic seaside hotel.
A constant presence was its owner/manager, Alma Lewis, who was known in an endearing way as “Nubs.” I was not her accountant, but she made more income from a trio of newer apartment houses she owned across the street that had somewhat better accommodations.
Some of the Royalton guests could be as eccentric as the hotel itself. There was a woman we called “Room Nine.” During Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the tropical depression caused Rehoboth streets to flood. Room Nine appeared in an inner tube where cars normally parked. She was a Baltimorean and could be spotted on the Northwood bus.
For many years, my family bunked at the house next door at No. 8 Wilmington Avenue in Rehoboth. Our third-floor windows (we called our space the “attic,” which it was) overlooked the hotel. On many nights, I think we had more guests than the Royalton because that third floor seemed to just be the spot where everyone wanted to be. Our building came with a huge parking lot, steps away from the ocean, making it a desirable destination.
Occasionally, some of my parents’ more proper guests would ask for other places to stay, and if they were old-fashioned in their tastes, we shipped them into the Royalton.
For several years, my younger sisters became the Royal waitresses. The food (homemade rolls and pies) was plain and simple and tasted like July and August. My sisters were all likely too young to get work permits. My mother and Aunt Cora were steps away. Besides, the Royalton was about as racy as rice pudding.
After a while, the fire and safety people caught up with inspections and the all-wood summer hotel flunked their tests. The property was sold to the people who owned the adjoining amusement park. The hotel then did an amazing second act and re-emerged as a first-floor-only business known as the Royal Treat.
The Royal Treat was an ice cream parlor after 1 p.m. In the morning, its servers produced a breakfast very similar to the old Royalton fare, except the food was so heavenly the lines could stretch down Wilmington Avenue. I think the breakfast-ice cream parlor version of the Royalton made more money in a week than the seaside hotel did in a season.
Mrs. Lewis was not around for the success of the Royal Treat. It was operated by several generations of the Formwalt family, who somehow managed to retain her plain, chaste and special quality of the old hotel in their new enterprise.
It had everything going wrong for it: cash only, non-air-conditioned, no parking lot, long lines and vigilant meter maids ready to slap on a parking ticket. Yet it was a smashing success.
The old hotel register and front desk became the ice cream dipping counter. The hotel dining room became the breakfast room. The old rules applied — plain pine floor, open windows, fans when sweltering. The wildest thing on the menu was a toasted English muffin. Captain Crunch did not embellish a meal.
The rocking chairs disappeared from the front porch and were replaced by dining tables and bentwood chairs.
Scott Formwalt ran the griddle in the hotel kitchen. My grandmother made excellent pancakes, but his were in a class of their own. His secret? Simplicity, non-doughy, but that doesn’t begin to describe how scrumptious they were. He also had a masterful way with eggs and only a few places I know can do an omelet as he could.
At night, he supervised a staff of young kids who dished up a zillion Moose Tracks sundaes and real chocolate ice cream sodas, the exact variety that Hutzler’s basement luncheonette served. The ice cream was Hershey’s and the Formwalt family did not charge designer ice cream prices. The Royal Treat was just as mobbed at night as it was for breakfast.
All good things come to an end, and so did the Royalton-Royal Treat in 2022, after 41 years of making many people happy.
Debbie Formwalt, the hostess and a co-owner, oversaw the seating for the breakfast shift. One day, I said to her that I had noticed a captain of Baltimore’s investment banking at another table. She informed me that he was outranked. She seated First Lady Laura Bush the day before.
Have a news tip? Contact Jacques Kelly at jacques.kelly@baltsun.com and 410-332-6570.