The Delmar Liquor Store

above 1934 ad

In 1934 the Delmar Liquor Store was owned by Harry Rapkin.

Harry Rapkin ( 1899-1972) was born in Nizhni Novgorod Russia.  His family made their way to Wilmington by 1916 and by 1933 they were in Rehoboth Beach Delaware.  He obtained liquor licenses for the Delmar Liquor Store in Delmar and the Milford Liquor Store in Milford in 1934.  He ran these stores plus other enterprises until the 1940s.  He expanded greatly in Rehoboth running a night club called the Wagon Wheel (would become the Riptide) and going into real estate, rental properties, finance and Insurance.  His wife Ida Hermann Rapkin whom he married in 1927, died in 1951.  They had for children Jerome and Edward.  He remarried in 1953 to Phyllis Cohen Pollack.

above 1939 ad showing the Delmar Liquor Store was connected to Harry Rapkin other business in Rehoboth. 

The Delmar Liquor Store was in the building on the corner of Pennsylvania and State street. It was often referred to as the Rapkin building. Harry Rapkin had purchased the building 20 July1946 from the Bank of Delmar who had acquired it from Doda Hearn in 1941.  A liquor store continued to occupy the same location into the 1960s.  Bill Culver and later Howard Beach ran the store.  In 1967 Howard Beach opened a new store by the same name across the tracks from the old store.

ad 02 March 1967 The Daily Times