Po’ Boys Creole Restaurant is easy to miss and hard to forget. The Milton eatery is sandwiched between a dollar store and a Mexican market in a modest strip center. Blink and you might miss it. Or just look for the small crowd that’s often gathered outside the door.
“When people are riding by and see a bunch of people standing outside in front of a restaurant, and it’s a little hole in the wall, they’re like, ‘Man, they must be serving some pretty good food in there,'” says Chase Nelson, the current owner.
Those waiting would agree. They’re looking forward to gumbo, blackened catfish, shrimp and grits or a fried oyster po’ boy, the restaurant’s namesake.
The tiny eight-table spot has become one of coastal Delaware’s most persistent culinary stories, a place that has survived three owners and the anxiety that comes when regulars hear the word “sold.”
Server Lisa Clarke knows the secret to Po’ Boys’ success.
“Consistency,” she maintains. “People come back a year later, get that same exact dish and the first thing out of their mouths is, ‘It tastes exactly how I remember.'”
That’s because Po’ Boys is more than a restaurant. It’s a tradition built on carefully guarded recipes and a hard-to-define chemistry that each owner strives to preserve. When Nelson purchased Po’ Boys, it wasn’t a blank canvas. There were certain expectations that he had to meet.
“The gumbo, I couldn’t touch that,” he says. “The Creole sauce, nobody wanted that changed.”
So he didn’t. Instead, Nelson followed the advice of former owner Michael Clampitt: Take it slow. At the same time, Nelson has put his stamp on the beloved restaurant.
The Birth of Po’ Boys
Amy and Lee Stewart opened the restaurant as Po’ Boys Creole & Fresh Catch in 2009 after Lee, a chef with experience cooking Creole cuisine in the Florida Panhandle, was looking for a new direction.
For the uninitiated, a po’ boy is Louisiana’s signature sandwich: French bread stuffed with fried seafood or another filling. It usually comes “dressed,” which means it’s finished with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise.
The affordable Milton space was small, but the niche was large. Few Sussex County restaurants specialized in Cajun and Creole cooking.
“It’s very, very traditional,” Lee Stewart said in 2011 of his menu. “We’ve had customers tell us that it’s even better than in New Orleans.”
While the Stewarts were building a following, Clampitt was preparing for restaurant ownership. He took SCORE classes to learn about business and marketing, but no one needed to teach him how to cook. The Johnson & Wales University graduate had worked at several beach-area restaurants, including the old Sea horse Restaurant, Gilligan’s, Blue Moon and Tijuana Taxi, where he’d worked alongside Stewart.
Before buying Po’ Boys, Clampitt had been the executive chef at the Baywood Greens restaurant in Millsboro for about a decade. Nelson had worked under him.
“Everything was by the book,” Nelson recalls. “He was one of the most organized chefs that I’ve worked for.”
When the Stewarts were ready to sell, Clampitt bought the business with his wife, Melissa. They reopened Po’ Boys in January 2014, and Clampitt became the face of the restaurant, cooking, greeting customers, taking orders, adding a food truck and serving gumbo at food and beverage events.
“That’s where the business really blew up, when he got the food truck,” Nelson says. “He was able to get mobile, brand the business and really create a following. Then people were like, ‘We’ve got to go to the restaurant itself.'”
Third Time’s the Charm
Running a restaurant is hard enough. Running a food truck adds another layer. Like many restaurants that ventured into the meals-on-wheels business, Po’ Boys eventually sold the truck. After pushing through COVID-19 and its effects on the industry, Clampitt decided to also sell the business.
The connection between Clampitt and Nelson helped ease the 2023 sale. Like Clampitt, Nelson had a fine dining background. The Culinary Institute of America graduate spent years at Eden, eventually taking control of the kitchen after his brother, Clay, left.
The transition from Clampitt to Nelson was seamless, Clarke and coworker Sharon Evans agree.
“The beauty of it is everything stayed the same,” Evans says. “Chase wanted to keep it that way, but he added his own touch.”
He added Bourbon Street chicken wings, which have become a hit. So have the crawfish-and-tasso-ham egg rolls. A seafood pasta made with Creole sauce, cream, spinach, blackened scallops, shrimp and crawfish started as a special and earned a permanent spot.
Then there is filet night, usually on a Wednesday, when Nelson says he can sell an entire case of steaks in one night. Any leftover meat is used to make smash burgers. The waste-not-want-not approach represents the kind of kitchen math diners may never see. However, it matters in a small independent restaurant, especially when food costs swing wildly. That attention extends to the plates. Before a plate leaves the kitchen, the team checks the temperature and wipes any stray drops from the edge.
Keeping Up With the Demand
With only six burners, the kitchen is a fast-paced environment, the one thing about owning Po’ Boys that Nelson did not anticipate.
“I think it’s just nonstop,” he says. “I’ve worked in seven or eight restaurants now, and I’ve just never seen anything this busy.”
A typical order from a food vendor is up to 60 cases. The takeout business is so brisk that the restaurant may briefly shut off the phone to catch up. Nelson does not need DoorDash, online ordering or another stream of tickets.
The diversity in the clientele amazes Nelson. Workers come in for lunch for an affordable meal, he says. Travelers pop in to load up on takeout for the weekend. Nelson, who bought a home in Milton shortly before buying Po’ Boys, sees the town as the right meeting point. Customers come from Dover, Salisbury, Ocean View and the beach towns.
Some have been coming since the Stewarts opened the doors. A couple and their adult daughter visit every day that the restaurant is open, sometimes twice a day.
“They don’t like to cook, and they love it there,” Evans says.
Others discovered the restaurant last week.
“We want to try and make sure they have the best meal,” Nelson says. Many of them hear about the restaurant from a friend.
Clarke has seen word of mouth work in real time. While waiting in line at Cape Henlopen State Park to get a surf tag, she started talking with another couple, who mentioned they had been meaning to try Po’ Boys. Before long, the people behind them were asking which restaurant she was talking about. They pulled it up on their phones while they waited and, Clarke says, promised they would be in soon.
Frequent customers struggle to order anything other than the dish that first hooked them.
“They will always come in and say, ‘I was going to get something different today, but I cannot not get my jambalaya, or I cannot not get my blackened catfish,'” Clarke says.
However, others will break with their traditions for Nelson’s specials.
The customer traffic, which is steady all year, is one reason why Nelson kept the four-days-a-week schedule that Clampitt instituted after the pandemic. An expansion could help, and if the neighboring space became available, Nelson would consider enlarging the kitchen, adding tables and creating a bar where people could wait. For now, those holding pagers visit the dollar store or wait in their cars. There’s no room inside.
For now, the little room works, and in a dining culture that often rewards bigger, newer and louder restaurants, Po’ Boys proves the opposite can work. It’s just the right recipe: eight tables, six burners, a line outside and a bowl of gumbo that tastes like people remember.
Chef Chase Nelson’s Local Faves:
BEST PLACE TO GET GREAT INGREDIENTS
Farmers markets and local produce stands. Going to farms and picking fresh fruit with the family teaches my daughter about the importance of local farming.
GO-TO BREAKFAST SPOT
The Backyard restaurant and bakery is across the street from Po’ Boys. It’s the perfect place to grab breakfast.
FAVORITE FUN ACTIVITY
Spending time with the family, going to the beach, surfing and golfing with the family.
FAVORITE PLACE TO CONNECT WITH NATURE
Since I was born and raised near the beach, it’s my place to unwind and relax.
FAMILY TIME
On Mondays, my daughter and I wait for my orders to be delivered. My wife, Taylor, helps out and serves tables sometimes, but really helps keep me organized. My dad, Mike, comes up a lot in the mornings and helps make the gumbo and prep to get the day going. My mom, Cheryl, arranges all the flower pots in front of the restaurant and changes them each season. She even does a Mardi Gras pot.
