Hungry in Rehoboth? This blog has you covered

Bob Yesbek has been successful in a lot of things, but when it comes to retirement, he has, in his own words, “failed miserably.”

After decades of work in audio/video production, technical education and as a professional musician, he decided to settle down in Rehoboth Beach for some well-earned relaxation.
Today he has a mini food empire that includes a high-traffic restaurant review blog, rehobothfoodie.com, a weekly radio show (also streamed as a podcast for non-Downstaters) called Sip and Bite on 105.9 FM, a food column in the Cape Gazette, is a co-operator of the Eating Rehoboth walking food tours and (yes, there’s more) is the author of the app Rehoboth in My Pocket.
So much for relaxation.
But Yesbek — if you can’t tell already — is passionate. About food, and Rehoboth, and more food.
“It started when a friend of mine said to me, ‘You know, you’re really opinionated,'” said Yesbek. “It’s true, I am. And I thought, why not start a blog, just for fun, with restaurant reviews?”
That little hobby blog soon grew too big to handle on a small server. He started taking on advertisers (no restaurants, though).
“My reviews are completely objective, so I don’t allow the restaurants to advertise on the blog,” he said, and that meant he’d need to keep doing well to retain them. So he’s become a self-made SEO expert, studying the latest practices and learning from trial and error.
“You really have to keep on top of it,” Yesbek said. “Both to see what you’re doing right, and to see when you’re doing something wrong. I’ve looked at my traffic numbers and found that they’ve gone down — why did they go down? I’d changed one word. One word can make a difference.”
He acquired Rehoboth in My Pocket after the original developer stopped updating it. The app features restaurant reviews, happy hour specials, crab and seafood buying guide and upcoming events in Rehoboth, Lewes and Dewey, plus activities of all kinds, from skimboarding and hiking to shopping and spas. “You can even use to to get a tattoo,” Yesbek points out.
Though his plate is full, he hardly makes it seem like a grind. Meetings with developers, keeping up the SEO, and getting up early to go through his high volume of blog comments isn’t exactly a day at the beach, but it sort of epitomizes the mantra “do what you love, love what you do.” This time, at least, he gets to do it without the “day job.”