Trip to North Carolina: Fun Evening in Downtown Raleigh

Finishing out my little series of posts on a recent trip to North Carolina when I joined my partner John on a business trip to Wilmington, NC. Here are the previous two posts in the series:

Trip to North Carolina: Quilt Shop Wander 

Trip to North Carolina: The Ocean

I’ve never visited Raleigh, North Carolina before, so we flew into Raleigh and spent an evening and 1/2 a day there before driving our rental car to Wilmington, NC. The two major airports to fly into when going to Wilmington are either Myrtle Beach or Raleigh.

We got a great deal on a hotel near Raleigh downtown and then randomly decided where to go eat (and later what to do after eating) in downtown.

I was in the mood for Dim Sum and we found online a restaurant that is both a brewery (we both love a good craft beer) and specializes in Dim Sum – Brewery Bhavana!

As an added bonus, it also had a bookstore next to and inside the dining area, so I got to browse books while we waited for a seat at the bar for our amazing meal!

Here are photos from our experience there.

Books, craft beer, and Dim Sum – YES PLEASE!

After a wonderful meal (and exceptional friendly service), we randomly decided to check out a place called – the Boxcar Bar + Arcade in downtown Raleigh. Yes, it was exactly what the name says – a bar and an arcade!

It was an arcade for adults (you had to be 21 to enter, which is legal drinking age in North Carolina). It was filled with vintage (and some newer) arcade games to include Pacman, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Galaga, air hockey, skee ball, and lots of pinball machines!

We got a roll of tokens for the arcade games and proceeded to lose track of time and play for several hours. We had so much fun! The vintage arcade games like Pacman we only 25 cents just like when I was a teen.

John was much better at the games than I was but I had an awesome time (even if I was absolutely terrible at pinball).

One of the very cool things is that the bar had TV screens in which they played vintage cartoons from the 1980s and 1990s including the one my brother was addicted to growing up: He–Man and the Masters of the Universe.

Watching it for a while at the bar reminded me of my younger brother being glued to the TV screen while that animated show played; and him wanting all the action figures!

Here are some photos from our time at the arcade bar (they are dark because it was rather dark in the bar-arcade).

What an evening! I look forward to flying into Raleigh again on our next trip to Wilmington, NC for John’s job and exploring more of Raleigh!