Review of Arena's Cafe in Lewes, Delaware

On my recent summer vacation in Lewes, Delaware, my family and I dined at Arena's Café for lunch. This restaurant is located in The Villages of Five Points shopping Center on Savannah Road, off of Route 1 North. The café is just 10 minutes from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Arena's was previously called "Java Hut" but the owners changed its name. I guess that Java Hut implies a coffee joint and they might have wished to show that they were starting to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Arena's Café has seating for 50 people inside and 25 people on the outdoor terrace. A full breakfast and lunch/dinner menu is offered. The breakfast menu includes omelets, breakfast sandwiches and wraps, classic eggs and pancakes.

The lunch/dinner menu reads like a diner menu except that it is not a 14 page book which weighs 10 pounds. A wide variety of dishes are served, including vegetarian, chicken and "build your own" sandwiches. For the build your own sandwich, the customer has to choose a meat or salad, a type of bread, a cheese and condiments.

There is an appetizer section, soup and salad selection and 28 different types of classic sandwiches, including a hot dog or BLT, but not including any hamburgers. Arena's doesn't forget about kids. There is a kid's menu of peanut butter and jelly, chicken bites, children's turkey sandwich, bologna and cheese and grilled cheese.

My son chose the kid's chicken bites for $3.99. The chicken breast was fried and then cut up into bite size pieces. He liked it and dipped it in the barbecue sauce. All kid's meals come with potato chips and a pickle.

My daughter wanted pancakes, so we ordered her a short stack of pancakes for $3.99. A short stack comes with two huge pancakes that take up the space of the entire plate. She ate them with butter and syrup. I also tried them and found them to be thick, tasty and moist.

My husband ordered the shrimp salad platter for $9.99. This dish consists of large gulf shrimp mixed with old bay seasoning, celery, mayonnaise and Arena's secret spices. The shrimp are served on top of a healthy vegetable salad. The salad was made of sliced carrots, tomatoes, red onions and a small amount of iceberg lettuce, topped with bean sprouts.

The shrimp salad was much classier than I expected. Usually, the shrimp are cut up in small pieces to make a shrimp salad. This version had whole fresh shrimp that was covered thoroughly in the old bay seasoned mixture. My husband was pleasantly surprised and also liked the dish.

One of my favorite Delaware treats is crab cakes. So naturally, I ordered the crab cake platter ($9.99). This dish came with cole slaw and the crab cake was served on a bed of baby red leaf lettuce. French fries come on the side.

The crab cake was broiled, then sautéed on both sides. It was average, meaning not the best Delaware crab cake and not the worst I have tasted. This one was a bit salty and used bread crumbs for filler. A true Delaware or Maryland crab cake would not use any filler at all. It would include only fresh lump crabmeat and spices.

The waitress brought out tartar sauce with my meal but forgot to bring lemons. I used the lemons from my iced tea to squeeze on the crab cake. The tartar sauce was fine but I only used a little bit, as I enjoy the taste of crabs.

Overall, I enjoyed my meal, as the cole slaw was homemade and not too creamy. Next time I plan on trying a sandwich. Other customers were eating turkey and chicken sandwiches on freshly baked wheat bread.

Another feature of Arena's café is the vast selection of coffee drinks that are brewed their using their own blends. On other occasions, I have tasted their iced coffee drink and thought it was comparable and even better that Dunkin Donuts. An Internet connected computer sits on a one-person seat, tucked in the corner. This place makes a great afternoon getaway if you can snag the computer seat.

I really liked the local laid back atmosphere of Arena's and everyone in my family enjoyed the food. We plan on stopping by again.