THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 9, 1996 TAG: 9608080161
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: COVER STORY
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 123 lines
THIS IS THE KIND of fast-moving town where any chi-chi eatery that's been around for five years is an institution. Long about then, they'll start to brag about it on the sign out front: ``Established 1991.''
So how do you explain Charlie's Seafood Restaurant, which has been steaming, frying and broiling seafood in the same block on Shore Drive for 50 years?
They've done it by keeping it in the family. The restaurant has been run by the same family since 1946, and with the same idea: Give people a place where mom and dad and the kids can eat dinner, walk away full and not have to take out a loan to buy gas for the drive home.
Charlie's is a squatty, peach-colored, cinder-block building along the side of a road that has changed dramatically since Mary E. and Charlie Rehpelz built a diner there in 1946. They'd moved from New York to Florida, but they hated the heat, so they doubled back to Virginia Beach, in the boom days just after the war. Charlie was a plumber. Mary had been a bookkeeper at Gimbel's Department Store in New York City.
Clam chowder was a quarter a bowl. Burgers were 20 cents.
Their grandson, Paul Rehpelz, pulled a photo off the wall the other day, an aerial taken in the early days, that showed nothing but scrub pine and sand dunes surrounding Charlie's. That view is clogged with townhouses and condominiums now, the roadway four lanes with traffic moving fast.
But little has changed inside Charlie's.
Red chrome-and-Formica tables, like the ones that anchored every kitchen in America in the 1950s, still fill the dining room. The floor is a buffed checkerboard linoleum, the walls are pine. The place has a retro look that designers spend a fortune trying to recreate.
At Charlie's, it's all real. It's comfy, down-home and unpretentious. Nobody will come by your table and whinny, ``My name is Enrique and I'll be your server this evening,'' and then baffle you with a list of weird nouvelle cuisine combinations that sound more like an English garden catalog than a menu.
At Charlie's, it's basic: an award-winning she-crab soup, steamed shellfish and a whole list of fish that you can have broiled, blackened or fried. They'll fry anything but your wallet at Charlie's.
``We try to keep it the way the Beach used to be,'' Paul Rehpelz said, ``a family atmosphere with prices in accordance with a family's limit.''
Keeping the prices in line is, in fact, the toughest part of the business, he said. ``Seafood, it's all just gone through the roof.''
The original restaurant was across the street, on the north side of Shore Drive, he said. It's still a restaurant, now the Beach Grill. The current Charlie's was built in 1954.
``We'd hang out here when we were kids. We'd help out, you know, crack oysters and clams, stuff like that,'' Paul said.
He and his brother Charlie - Charles Rehpelz III, named after dad and granddad - run it now. Both are in their early 40s. Their father, Charles Jr., was killed in an auto accident in the 1960s. Both grandparents are gone now, too.
Paul can remember, when he was a kid, that the Duck In and Henry's, both down the street at Lynnhaven Inlet, were about the only other places around.
``We'd close on Mondays,'' he said, ``so Granny often as not would carry us down to
Henry's for dinner. Henry's closed on Tuesdays, and their people would come here to eat.''
Even the competition was friendly. ``Those are good people that run those places, they do a good job. I went to school with them. To this day, if we run short of something, we'll call and they'll help us out. And they won't hesitate to do the same with us.''
His grandparents lived in the place. Literally. ``That part of the raw bar,'' Paul said, pointing over his shoulder, ``that was their living room.'' The raw bar in the early days, he said, was ``two 55-gallon drums out front, with a couple of 2-by-8s across 'em. 'Course, that was so long ago I don't even remember it.''
But he remembers his grandma, whom everybody called ``Miss Charlie.''
``Granny, man, she was something. She'd spoil the daylights out of us. And I never saw anybody who could work a crowd like she could.''
The continuity of the place, from the decor to a menu that has changed little, and slowly, over the years, extends to the staff.
Paul pointed to the kitchen. ``One lady, Jeanie Hines, has been cookin' here 45 years. Lied about her age to get the job. No kiddin', she did.
``That lady could make a boot taste good, honest to God. And she's not afraid to try something new, either. Jeanie used to baby-sit me and my brother when we were little.
``Ommie Daniels, she's worked here 38 years. Betty Hill has been here 27, maybe 28 years. Her mom worked here, too.''
He pointed to a big stuffed game fish on the wall, told how it had been given to them by a customer, ``Cap'n'' Tom Liverman. ``I went to school with his son, and now his son comes in. We're on our third generation now.''
Just as Paul was telling this story, Lois Morris of Norfolk dropped by the booth. ``I used to come here in the '60s,'' she said. ``We'd bring all six children. Came here because it was more reasonable than most. And you know whenever the kids are in town, we bring 'em back here.''
Paul thanked her. ``That,'' he said, smiling and shaking his head, ``is what it's all about.'' MEMO: Charlie's Seafood Restaurant, 3139 Shore Drive, opens at 5 p.m.
Mondays, 11:30 a.m. other days, and serves full dinners until 9:30 p.m. ILLUSTRATION: Photo courtesy of the Rehpelz family
Rehpelz siblings Paul, left, Patricia and Charlie III own and
operate Charlie's out of a squatty, peach-colored, cinder-block
building.
Mary and Charlie Rehpelz, the original Charlie, opened their diner
in 1946 on the north side of Shore Drive, then moved it across the
street in 1954.
Staff photos, including color cover, by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
Rehpelz siblings Paul, left, Patricia and Charlie III own and
operate Charlie's out of a squatty, peach-colored, cinder-block
building.
Jeanie Hines has been cooking Charlie's famous she-crab soup for 45
years. ``Lied about her age to get the job,'' says owner Paul
Rehpelz. ``. . . That lady could make a boot taste good, honest to
God.''
Leah Eyler, left, passes fellow waitress Erin Swiader on her way out
of the kitchen with a tray of seafood. They'll fry anything but your
wallet at Charlie's. by CNB