I think this place will be good for the convention goers when they’re in town.
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Where is this?
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Next to Sirwal coffee shop on Fayetteville St.
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A new artist lounge, art cafe, event space, game room and vinyl shop is opening on Salisbury St. (122 S. Salisbury St.) next year. (Called The Artist Lounge Raleigh)
Reggie and Georgia Tardy purchased the space for $1.3 million in October. Demo of the interior space (formerly a bail bonds business) has already started.
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Couple more highlights:
“The basement level of the 4,500-square-foot building will become a vinyl listening lounge, while the main floor will be a cafe and rotating art gallery. Upstairs, the venue will have a game room with pool tables and vintage arcade games, Tardy said.”
“The Artist Lounge will also feature a retractable rooftop deck. Both the rooftop and the game room will be available as rentable event space for musicians to play concerts or other arts-centric gatherings.”
Current site:
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Nice to see investment and activation on this stretch of Salisbury. We need activation between downtown destinations.
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Sounds like a fun spot. I hope they are successful, would love to see more investments like this downtown.
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Love this. Every time I walk/drive past this block, I wish someone would be able to activate some of the spaces. Hoping Local Icon does something again with their former Virgil’s/Merchant spot as well.
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Agree. With this and the Newsagents coming to Fayetteville Street, hopefully, we’ll have a few more third places downtown for folks to hang out and find community.
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Local Icon doesn’t own that property. They had issues with the landlord (similar to the issues from Covid) and moved everything over to the London Bridge/Architect/Green Light property. Of course the Merchant taking over what was Architect.
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Got it. For some reason I thought I remembered reading that they were going to, (1) move Merchant into Architect, (2) rename/renovate London Bridge, and (3) potentially open another concept in at least one of the S Salisbury spaces. May be misremembering that though. So far I know (1) has happened, but I think London Bridge has changed names or anything yet either.
AMAZING!!! Literally ANYTHING is better than all the damn Bail Bonds businesses that once littered downtown - but THIS in particular is such an awesome concept. Love to see more legit shops coming downtown, especially anything that incorporates arts/music. This gets 5-stars from me 
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Sounds like that Landlord needs to sell and let someone with actual vision and passion for downtown Raleigh take over. Same with the City Market owners. Scum, the lot of them.
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agree 100%. The rooftop concert venue is also a nice niche to carve out. Off the top of my head I don’t know of anything locally that is similar, but that is obviously something you often see in major cities like London, NYC etc like this → https://youtu.be/6MAzUT1YhWE?si=1RX1oJoxL98eej8W
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It looked like work was happening inside 800 N Person when I drove by tonight. Anybody know what’s going on?
The Artist Lounge Raleigh plans to open next year at 122 S. Salisbury St. as a cafe, rotating art gallery, vinyl listening lounge, and more. I’ve added a few pictures here of renderings and current renovation progress originally posted on Instagram and TBJ
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The Asian Fusion place in Ridgewood has come a long way. Always good to have more options sort of near the sports areas and the museum.
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Any idea when newsagents opens?
The last date I have heard for Newsagents opening is early 2026. Sometime in January, perhaps?
