The Starboard Bar and Restaurant is a local icon in Dewey Beach, Delaware. The establishment has 55 years of history, a diehard local fanbase, and is known nationwide for its beachside events. So when Bethany Beach-based DiFebo Hardwood Flooring was selected for the task of replacing their floors, it was known that this was a huge undertaking.
DiFebo Hardwood Flooring’s goal was to make the floors of this hot spot really shine while ensuring
Photo credit: The Starboard Bar and Restaurant
that they would hold up to the extraordinary amount of foot traffic that the bar sees on a regular basis, with “shoulder-to-shoulder people just destroying this floor” during busy summer nights, according to the Starboard’s facilities manager, Mike Helwich.
Every year or every two years they would have to have the floor sanded down and refinished because of the extreme amount of foot traffic it sees every day, especially during the summer.
“Any time you think that you’ve seen an abused floor, we’ve overdone it 10 times,” says Mike.
The challenge was on.
DiFebo Hardwood Flooring, which is operated by Bobby DiFebo, decided on a complete floor
renovation, installing new joists, beams, and a new subfloor in addition to prefinished oak and walnut flooring on top for added strength and durability.
Although much of the flooring
had been replaced about 20 years ago when the owner, Stephen “Monty” Montgomery and his group first bought the bar, parts of it had not been touched in nearly five decades. So they decided that it would be best for the life of the flooring to rip up everything down to the subfloors and start from square one to give the floors the fresh start that they deserved.
Once locals got word of the fact that the old floor was being torn up, they asked for pieces of it and came in droves to pull the old floor from the dumpsters. Mike says that the dumpster “kept emptying itself every day” when the contractors threw out the old floor because so many people wanted to take home a piece of local history.
DiFebo put down a prefinished 4″ white oak floor interspersed with 2-1/4″ walnut, along with a tight seal on top. The company worked closely with City Floor sales rep Ed Sullivan to source the exact right flooring for the job.
They settled on white oak and walnut for the durability and hardness of each species, with the striking color variation between the two species and the pronounced vertical lines giving the space more depth.
The floors’ grand debut
The new floors made a big appearance during Starboard’s 2018 opening weekend, which was held from March 15th through 18th of this year.
The Starboard’s floors during the 2018 Opening Weekend
Lots of liquids were certainly on the floor throughout the opening weekend, which included a St. Patrick’s Day blowout party. This is a glowing example of the “abuse” that these floors must stand up to.
All of the wood for this project was proudly supplied by City Floor Supply, and we are happy to see it go to good use! We’re excited to see how these floors hold up as the summer approaches and the bar starts to see crowds turn up in droves.
Browse our selection of prefinished solid and prefinished engineered hardwood flooring. For more information, email info@cityfloorsupply.com or call us at (800) 737-1786.
