DaVinci's by the Sea served its final plate of Italian comfort food Thursday evening, closing the doors on a 40-year run along the Ocean City Boardwalk. The oceanfront restaurant, tucked into the ground level of the historic Harrison Hall Hotel at 1501 Atlantic Avenue on 15th Street, had already announced that 2026 would be its last season before wrapping up service for good this week.
The restaurant's final dinner ran from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, according to the DaVinci's by the Sea Facebook page, marking the last seating before the family permanently shut its doors. Owner Vince Sapia, whose parents started the restaurant in 1986, told The MoCo Show that DaVinci's was an important part of his family's life, and that when he reflects on 40 years, he thinks about the people rather than the business.
Over four decades, DaVinci's by the Sea served Ocean City residents, vacationers, and generations of returning families, per the same account. The restaurant relied heavily on seasonal workers and J-1 students from around the world, a workforce model common to Ocean City resort venues, which nationally draw on roughly 100,000 international college students each year through the State Department's J-1 Summer Work Travel program, according to Business Insider.
Friendships, Marriages, and Family Ties Forged Over the Years
Sapia said some employees formed lifelong friendships at DaVinci's, and that others met while working there and eventually married, per The MoCo Show's report. He added that his daughter, along with nieces and nephews, had never known a time when the restaurant was absent from their family's lives. Sapia described the restaurant's 40-year run as incredible and expressed gratitude for his family, employees, and customers.
The menu leaned on Italian comfort food staples: fresh-baked Italian bread with garlic butter, salad with homemade dressing, daily-prepared sauces, and sautéed dishes made to order with extra virgin olive oil and traditional Italian pan sauces. Diners could eat inside or out on the restaurant's oceanfront deck, taking in views along what has grown into Ocean City's 2.5-mile boardwalk — a structure that began as a temporary wooden walkway in 1902, was extended north to 15th Street in the 1920s, and was rebuilt into its current permanent form after a destructive storm in March 1962, according to Ocean City Maryland Boardwalk History.
A Family Legacy Rooted in Betty Sapia's Memory
Vince Sapia's parents, including his late mother Betty Sapia, co-founded DaVinci's in 1986, and Betty served as the matriarch of the family business, according to the Burbage Funeral Home obituary. Sapia has named his growing burger concept, Surfin' Betty's, in her honor, a detail highlighted by The Banner. That burger brand traces its own roots to Surfin' Betty's Beach Bar, a separate boardwalk spot the Sapia family ran from 1986 through 2019, per Surfin' Betty's Burger Bar's own account.
Sapia opened the flagship Surfin' Betty's Burger Bar on 15th Street in 2023, then expanded to 127th Street in North Ocean City in 2024, as well as to Bethany Beach, Delaware, The Banner reports. The burger bar sources all of its beef from Roseda Farms in Monkton, Maryland, using pasture-raised, solar-powered, and dry-aged Maryland beef, according to Surfin' Betty's Burger Bar. With DaVinci's now closed, Sapia plans to focus on Surfin' Betty's, which is growing rapidly, per Sapia's own account to The MoCo Show.
End of an Era Along a Changing Boardwalk
Customers returned during DaVinci's final weeks to share memories, and familiar faces reconnected while new friendships formed among longtime guests, according to the restaurant's own account relayed by The MoCo Show. The closure follows a string of losses among the boardwalk's old guard: Alaska Stand on 9th Street permanently closed in February 2025 after more than 90 years in business, as The MoCo Show reported at the time.
The mid-century Flagship Hotel and restaurant at 26th Street was also completely demolished in 2026, according to OceanCity.com. Together, the changes mark a generational shift along the boardwalk, as family-run, sit-down institutions give way to newer developments and fast-casual concepts like the one Sapia now plans to grow.
