Looks like they are mid food service permit app right now
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Ha. I had forgotten they were a private club for 8 years that everyone on earth was a member of for free.
Put me down as someone that applauds people working around over zealous regulation. When I get a hot dog from a street cart I don’t look for a sanitation score, and the same goes for Cardinal bar, where I can watch them cook the food next to the Scotch.
I wish we had street food in Raleigh, but because of health permits street carts can’t prepare anything raw…
Edit: actually I never look for a health score lol. Every restaurant has roaches in it
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i like Campbells soup…but maybe this stuff got momentum a while back and many places also have to deal with it
i can recall being in northe raleigh some years back and preferred ‘peroclator lounge’ coffee to other known chains…they had old surplus school desks in side to sit at. i think they closed or were converted to something else. they had a particularly good green tortilla stuffed with eggs and ham…“green…eggs and ham” on the menu. it was good.
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DTR needs more chains. They’ll produce more consistent foot traffic than the random hodgepodge of local stores and restaurants we have in the CBD now, so it’s a win in my book. Even if it’s not the best lineup (which is isn’t). More foot traffic on Fayetteville St will only help entice more stores and chains to join the fray. Like it or not, people are familiar with chains and more likely to spend way more time and money there than whatever else you’d probably prefer, especially in this economy.
Imagine a Bojangles, Taco Bell Cantina, 24/7 Walgreen’s, or (another) Chick-fil-A in this area. It’d do wonders for the liveliness and walkability of the area and supplement the big influx of new residents nicely. These 3 shops (Primo, Insomnia, and Diced) are baby steps that help inch us towards that reality. Looking forward to more of it, especially more late-night options!
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I’ll definitely agree to the Walgreens and any other Retail chains. Absolutely. (Target please!)
Cannot agree on restaurant chains though. If you live in the suburban fringes of Raleigh and see how the chains are sooooo saturated that non-chain restaurants can’t survive at all, you’ll think it differently. (In my neighborhood we’re pretty desperate for anything non-chain! We literally have Zilch.)
Downtown already has a good few as it is (Subway, McDs, Krispy Kreme, Starbucks…and even the Bojangles & CookOut are only 8 blocks from the Capitol.) So, yeah, IMO, we’re good on that.
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Oh I know, and I agree. Still bores me, either way lol.
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If I look at the evolution of South Beach in Miami as an example, it’s definitely moved in the direction of chains. Since I’ve owned there in 2002, here is a list of new retail chains (off the top of my head).
Marshalls
Ross (3 of them)
Target
Burlington Coat Factory
Apple
Gap
Forever 21
Best Buy
TJ Maxx
Total Wine
Lululemon
Sephora (2)
Nike
CVS
Walgreens
I’m sure that there are others, but these are the first to come to mind.
I think it’s a valid strategy. Chains bring foot traffic and they keep the foot traffic that’s already in the area. Chains are often more affordable and people seek them out. Not everyone can afford boutiques all of the time.
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Press Coffee at 400H will open on June 4th according to Raleigh Magazine.
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I’m reposting this, hoping to see some of these places open in the future 
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I’m in Knightdale, so I definitely can relate to your concerns there haha. I can probably name all of the non-chain restaurants on one hand in this town. I do think that DTR won’t suffer from chain cannibalization in the same way that our suburbs and towns on the outskirts do though. There’s much more density downtown and people are less car dependent, so I do think I’m this particular case it’s more of a “rising tide lifts all boats” type of situation. Someone could go grab food at Diced, then a drink afterwards at The Big Easy, for example.
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I only went to the Big Easy for their drugs…
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DTR needs a Cook Out. The New Bern one is overloaded with demand.
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I would LOVE a Cook Out in actual downtown.
I agree that New Bern is overloaded. Their drive-thru is a nightmare. It’s too far away for me to walk and get home with my food even lukewarm. So, I end up going to the one on Western so that I can at least not get stuck in that quagmire.
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Re-open Circus Family Restaurant.
Goodwill thrift store
Sad thing is that we had a Goodwill and it was by far the best one in the city for finding good stuff despite it’s small size. It’s now a gravel parking lot.
I think it’s going to be pretty tough for a thrift store to make rent in all these shiny new retail spaces.
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The rent is to damn high!! No doubt that would be an issue. But an owner/leasing agent might see something like this as good PR and a loss leader - getting more foot traffic to encourage the rental of other spaces.
I knew you’d swoop in and take the bait 
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yeah that was a cool store, I almost forgot it used to be there. anyone know why they closed it again?