Raleigh-Durham International Airport’s Terminal 1 quietly flipped the switch on a fresh batch of shops and restaurants Thursday, giving travelers more local beer, sit-down meals and grab-and-go candy and gifts before they board. The upgrades bring in a full-service Raleigh Beer Garden outpost, an Italian spot and a refreshed ACC American Café, along with added news-and-gift options up and down the A concourse. Airport officials say the goal is to spread passenger traffic more evenly, ease crowding at busy gates and put some distinctly Triangle flavors in front of out-of-towners, all as part of a much larger, multi-year investment across the airport.
As reported by WRAL, the new spots opened to the public on Thursday as part of an ongoing effort to re-tenant Terminal 1. According to WRAL, airport leaders are pairing national brands with local operators to give flyers a wider range of hours, menus and price points.
What’s now open in Terminal 1
The airport’s concessions directory now lists Raleigh Beer Garden at Gate A4 and the ACC American Café at Gate A7, along with an Italian restaurant, a candy shop and several new news-and-gift retailers spaced along the concourse. RDU notes that these additions build on earlier openings such as Crawford’s Genuine and Beyu Caffé, all folded into a broader concessions refresh that leans on local partnerships.
Part of a $2.5B Transform RDU plan
The Terminal 1 overhaul sits inside RDU’s Transform RDU capital program, a roughly $2.5 billion package that also includes a landside expansion of Terminal 2, a new runway and major parking and roadway projects. Reporting from Axios describes the program as a capacity play, with some pieces expected to continue into the early 2030s.
Roadwork already underway
Parts of the wider plan are already turning up in planning documents and funding requests that call for widening John Brantley Boulevard to relieve terminal-area congestion and for building a new ground-transportation center to pull ride-hailing and shuttle traffic off the arrival curbs. A community-project summary from Rep. Deborah Ross lists the John Brantley Boulevard extension among the projects submitted for federal backing.
What travelers should know
Airport officials say construction will be sequenced so ticket counters and security checkpoints stay open, but passengers should expect temporary walls, shifting signs and occasional construction noise while the work is underway. The airport’s construction notice on RDU says guest-services staff will be on hand to help people navigate the terminals during the multi-year buildout and urges travelers to budget extra time during peak periods, especially while the Terminal 2 landside work is in progress…