Haven’t been to The Charcoal Pit in the past six months? You’re missing a lot. h The legendary Concord Pike charbroiled hamburger palace is a lot like Benjamin Button – it’s aging backward. h A spiffy and extensive overhaul of the restaurant, planned before the pandemic began in 2020 and done painstakingly and piecemeal so the eatery never closed, has it back to looking much like it did when the restaurant opened nearly 70 years ago. The Charcoal Pit also has reimagined its popular sundaes named after area high schools.
The Pit, as it’s known to regulars, also re-cently got a giant boost from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. A video of the pair enjoying triple-thick milk-shakes from the Delaware restaurant at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago went viral in August Since then, sales have increased more than 30%, according to head chef Lupe Avilez, who has been working at The Pit for 30 years.
Biden’s rave about the restaurant on the video has brought curious new customers coming from as far away as Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Virginia, New York, Pitts-burgh, and even Nebraska to dine on The Charcoal Pit’s famed burgers, cheeses-teaks, fries, and, of course, the old-fashioned milkshakes served in frosted metal containers, he said.
The Charcoal Pit was founded by the late Louis Sloan and his three brothers, Sam, Marty and Aaron in 1956. The Sloan brothers already were operating another one of the state’s landmark casual eateries, The Dog House Sandwich Shop in Wilmington Manor, when they decided to capitalize on their success. They modeled the Charcoal Pit, an archetypal American hamburger joint, after The Dog House. After 30 years, Lou Sloan sold The Charcoal Pit to developer Louis J. Capano Jr. in 1986. He and his son Louis Capano III, CEO of Capano Management, are the current owners.
Zachary Busby, Capano Management’s director of marketing and communications, said Louis J. Capano Jr. in recent years wanted to give a glow-up to the aging restaurant that has served generations of Delawareans. While the landmark restaurant remained a time capsule, the almost 70-year-old building’s interior and exterior needed some tender loving care. Renovations began last year with the goal of maintaining its charm and nostalgia. “We used a lot of the old photos as in-spiration,” Busby said. “We wanted to pay homage to the original Charcoal Pit from the 1950s and 1960s.” Busby declined to give the cost of the project. “This restaurant is important to Louis and his father. It’s about preserving its legacy and history rather than sticking to strict budget renovations,” he said.
But, it wasn’t cheap to recreate the past. When the Capanos found that the original “UFO-style” pendant lights hanging from the ceiling were no longer available, they had throwback fixtures custom-made to look exactly like the ones seen in vintage photos. The Charcoal Pit once had a long counter with a view of Concord Pike. It was torn away years ago to make room for booths. A new L-shaped “milkshake” bar with 10 comfy stools was extended and seats were added during the recent renovations as a reminder of the former counter. The tiled black-white-and-red floors have been replaced, the dining room walls are kitted out with vintage-style white subway and penny tile, and the kitchen equipment is all new. Restrooms were overhauled, and tabletops at the booths were replaced. The jukeboxes at each booth were refurbished and now work digitally. Instead, of dropping quarters into slots, song picks are free and are added to a queue system that plays chosen songs in the order in which they are selected. The walls of ephemera – newspaper clippings, former menus, photos of re-tired employees, and pictures of customers including Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama – have been re-framed. A colorful mural of The Char-coal Pit painted by artist Christian Kanienberg covers the wall of a new seating area that can accommodate larger groups. The takeout area also was refurbished and the iconic exterior sign was rewired. New lighting was added to the outside of the building to give it a pink diner-style glow at night. “Our daily customers love it,” Busby said. “They feel like it’s been updated, but it hasn’t lost that Charcoal Pit feeling.”
In addition to celebrating its char-broiled hamburger history, The Char-coal Pit has long been known for serving timeless dishes like cheeseburgers, fries, hot dogs, cheesesteaks, split pea soup, crab chowder (Wednesdays only), root beer floats, tuna salad sandwiches and New England clam strips.
It also revels in being part of the com-munity; the menu has had a list of sundaes named after nine Delaware high schools and their mascots since its early days. “Mr. C is adamant about not changing any classic items on the me-nu,” Busby said.
But in 2023 when Ursuline Academy alumni and students convinced The Pit to add a sundae on the menu named after the private Wilmington girls’ school, Busby said owners decided it was time to upgrade the other nine sundaes. A new line of high school sundaes known as the “Valedictorian edition” are updated versions of the classic sundaes.
The sundaes, $10.95 each, honor Ursuline, Salesiasnum and Tatnall schools as well as Brandywine, St. Mark’s, Dickinson, McKean, Concord, A.I. du Pont, and Mount Pleasant high schools. (The Pit still offers the original, classic recipe high-school sundaes as well).
The Valedictorian Edition sundaes have modern ingredients that reflect the character of the high schools.
A sundae named for A.I. du Pont High School is made with chocolate banana cake, banana and birthday cake ice creams and has sweet caramel and chocolate sauce. It is topped with ba-nana slices, whipped cream, blue and yellow sprinkles, and has a cherry and paw print lollipop to celebrate the school’s mascot, a tiger.
Mount Pleasant’s sundae has mint ice cream, creamy hot fudge, pepper-mint patty pieces, whipped cream, and green sprinkles. There’s a maraschino cherry on a sword (the school’s mascot is a Green Knight) and whole peppermint patties on top.
Mary Avilez, a longtime Pit employee, said she has seen a resurgence of high school students back at the Pit. “The kids have always come here after games, and after dances,” she said. “One time we had a big high school choir come in. They took up the whole restaurant. Then, they stood up and sang. It was so cool.”
As a giant pile of caramelized onions sears on the flat-top griddle shortly be-fore the lunch crowd hustles in and the bluesy 1956 Fats Domino hit “Ain’t That a Shame” blares from the jukeboxes, head chef Lupe Avilez reflects on how busy the restaurant has been since President Biden talked about his affection for The Charcoal Pit on a social media video that went viral.
Biden, a customer since his high school days at Archmere Academy, received a triple-thick black-and-white milkshake in August after he said good-bye to his 50-year political career at the Democratic National Convention. He threw his support to Vice President Ka-mala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
After the speech, someone apparent-ly thought Biden needed comfort food from his hometown, 752 miles away from Chicago, and handed him the shake. “Whoa. Charcoal Pit?” says Biden in the video as he is handed a 24-ounce milkshake and sees the Delaware land-mark restaurant’s logo on the to-go pa-per cup. “They have the best triple thick black-and-white milkshakes,” the president said. Harris, a well-known foodie, also was handed a Charcoal Pit milkshake. “Oh, my God,” she says holding the cup and then sipping. “Oh, this is so good. Mmmm. Oh, my God, this is perfect.”
Avilez said the presidential endorsement has caused business to skyrocket. The day after the video appeared on social media, customers, those local and from out-of-town, began flocking to the Pit. Customers from New Hampshire and California also ordered Charcoal Pit cups and T-shirts from the Pit’s online store to host at-home parties, he said. “Everyone wants to eat and drink whatever Joe eats,” Avilez said.
The president’s usual order? (He gets takeout sometimes when he is back home in Delaware.) Cheeseburger, or cheesesteak, fries, and, of course, that triple-thick milkshake. “We had to triple the ice cream order,” Avilez said, adding that the order went from 80 gallons of ice cream a week to 200 gallons.
Avilez said he’s hoping a third president – Obama dined there in July 2014 –might soon dine at The Charcoal Pit. “[Biden] said if Kamala Harris wins, he’s going to bring her here,” he said. Perhaps, a new Pit tradition?
This article is a reprint, originally found on Delaware Online by Patricia Talorico
