Eric Fiori, whose boat business on Worcester Highway burned down last year, plans to reopen on the site of the old Shore Drive-In on Route 50 in West Ocean City.
Fiori, who also is a Worcester County Commissioner, says he’ll move his retail and repair operation, Bayside Jet Drive, to the 14.6-acre roadside property sometime in the next 12 to 18 months. He hopes to build a new boat dealership, service shop, and storage warehouse. The shop will employ about 10 people.
He closed on the property May 21 for $1.5 million, he told OC Today-Dispatch in an interview this week.
Bayside Jet Drive’s former Worcester Highway showroom outside Berlin was destroyed Nov. 13, 2025, in a major commercial structure fire that drew 23 fire companies from Maryland and Delaware.
He said the Route 50 property gives the business room to rebuild and consolidate its operations, including a second Bayside Jet Drive location in Ocean View, Delaware.
Fiori opened the 13,000-square-foot showroom in 2012 after starting the company in 2000 as a one-man Jet Ski rental and repair service.
The drive-in property had been owned since September 2020 by Keith and Shelley Coffin, who sold it to Fiori. He said they’d been responsible for much of the site work and improvements, including clearing the land of debris and underbrush.