Drayage Brokersin Raleigh, NC

Traditionally seasonal pools open on Memorial Day weekend, unofficially signaling the beginning of summer. It's not Memorial Day yet, but many pools and spraygrounds in and around Raleigh have already opened for the season.

Check out this list of five places to swimming right now!

Jack Smith Park

This Cary sprayground is typically open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, weather permitting. It features seven water features and is great for children ages 12 and younger. This 50-acre tract of land also includes a playground and 10-foot tall climbing rock. You can check the status of the sprayground by going online, but note that it will be closed for maintenance dates: Jun 12, Jul 10 and Aug 14, Sep 11.

Cost: Free

Location: 9725 Penny Road, Cary, NC

Moore Square Splash Pad

Enjoy the interactive water feature at this downtown Raleigh park through November 2023. The splash pad is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m (weather permitting). Moore Square is in downtown Raleigh, across from Marbles Kids Museum, at 200 S. Blount St. It's also home to Square Burger, which is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, with burgers, hot dogs and salads.

Cost: Free

Location: 201 S. Blount St., Raleigh, NC

John Chavis Memorial Park Splashpad

This splashpad is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Sunday. The water feature is disabled during inclement weather and no lifeguard is on duty. Children who are not potty trained must wear swim diapers. Get more information about the sprayground and playground which opened after renovations in 2021.

Cost: Free

Location: 505 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Raleigh, NC

Buffaloe Road Aquatic Center

This indoor pool has waterslides, a vortex whirlpool, lazy river and a smaller area for toddlers. It opened more than 1- years ago! There have been lifeguard shortages, so make sure to check the day you plan to attend to find out which attractions are open. Also, go early on weekends because there can be a wait-list! Best time to go: First thing in the morning during the week.

Cost: $4 for residents/$7 for non-residents ages 1-12 years old; $8 for residents/$15 for non-residents ages 13-55 years old; $6 for residents/$11 for non-residents ages 55 years and older

Location: 5908 Buffaloe Road, Raleigh, NC

Taylor Street Park Sprayground

Wake Forest's first sprayground is open for the season. It features 16 jet streams, buckets and more fun. Just press the activator button on top of the orange pole and the sprayground will produce a water flow in four-minute intervals.

Cost: Free

Location: 416 N. Taylor St., Wake Forest, NC

Pullen Aquatic Center

This indoor pool is great for families to enjoy during the week. Recreational swimming is open Monday through Thursday and on Fridays it stays open until 8 p.m. In 2018, the facility underwent $6 million in renovations including roof repairs, lighting adjustments and other work.

Cost: $2 for residents/$3 for non-residents ages 1-12 years old; $5 for residents/$8 for non-residents ages 13-55 years old; $4 for residents/$6 for non-residents ages 55 years and older

Location: 410 Ashe Ave., Raleigh, NC

Swimming pools in North Carolina: Search for your favorite public pool

Many pools and spraygrounds in the Triangle open Memorial Day weekend. Find a pool near you by checking out our guide!

A coastal North Carolina seafood brand is building an inland empire.

Cape Fear Seafood Company will open its third Triangle location next week in Wake Forest. The new location follows restaurants in North Raleigh and The Village District.

The Wake Forest restaurant is located at 3612 Roger’s Branch Road in the Wheatfield Plaza shopping center.

The first Triangle location opened in 2019 in the former Kamado Grill location in North Raleigh.

This will mark the second Cape Fear opening in Wake County this year, following the Village District restaurant opening in January.

The brand first launched in Wilmington in 2008 and now evenly divides its six restaurants between there and the Triangle.

The Triangle locations are owned by a franchise group of longtime Cape Fear employees Eddie Elliott and Matt Wivell.

“We have been fortunate to enjoy growth in a Raleigh area that already boasts some of the most iconic seafood restaurants in the state. We don’t take that for granted,” said Elliott. “We have succeeded because of a mission of hospitality, a dedication to quality ingredients, and a desire to stay true to what we know: serving up delicious seafood. We are confident our new Wake Forest location will be true to that.”

Cape Fear’s menu includes the kind of broad seafood experience that’s familiar when visiting the coast. Popular dishes include shrimp and grits, stuffed flounder and an array of fried seafood platters.

As it has for previous openings, the Wake Forest Cape Fear Seafood will hold charity dinners for the first few nights of service May 25-28. The nights are reservation only and 50 percent of sales will be donated to The First Tee of the Triangle, The Joel Fund and The Trawick Pediatric Cardiology Fund at Duke Children’s Hospital.

“Giving back to these three dynamic causes while celebrating our opening feels extra special,” said Eddie Elliott, Franchise Partner for Wake County. “Everyone associated with the restaurant has an ethos of service – from the greeters to the wait staff and cooks, all the way through how we give back to organizations that do so much for the community that we love so much.”

A half-eaten bowl of chicken and rice sat in Frederik Andersen’s empty locker, sustenance consumed during the sixth intermission. A cart full of more of those bowls, plus fresh fruit and yogurt, sat outside the door to the Carolina Hurricanes’ locker room, prepared for a seventh intermission that wouldn’t come.

Inside, players limped and staggered through the locker room like they had awoken from a long slumber, bags of ice attached to all kinds of body parts — ankles, knees, hip flexors. Jesper Fast barely pedaled an exercise bike, sullenly.

It may not be a broken group, after losing the sixth-longest game in NHL history, but it is certainly a battered one.

To play that long, into the darkening shadow of a seventh overtime, and come away with nothing leaves a challenge that is as much mental as it is physical. You can’t win a series in Game 1, but you can certainly lose it, especially when that game drags on until almost 2 a.m.

“We lost the first one, but you’ve got to just sleep on it and come back the next day and start fresh,” Hurricanes forward Martin Necas said, even if the next day was already here.

That is the crossroads where the Hurricanes now find themselves, 3-2 losers to the Florida Panthers in a conference-final opener that went on and on and on and on, until the least likely of culprits made the fatal mistake. Jaccob Slavin turned it over in the neutral zone. First Brent Burns and then Slavin failed to get the puck out. And Matthew Tkachuk, who had barely done a thing all night, came swooping off the boards to beat the phenomenal Andersen after 139 minutes and 47 seconds of hockey.

Less than a minute earlier, Sebastian Aho had a wide-open look at the post but couldn’t elevate the puck over Sergei Bobrovsky’s right pad. These are the fine margins by which games and series and championships are won and lost — the Panthers even had a would-be winner disallowed for goaltender interference in the first overtime, which in retrospect would have been merciful — and no one knows that better than Rod Brind’Amour, who was trailing the decisive play in what had until Thursday-slash-Friday been the longest game in franchise history.

Igor Larionov beat Bates Battaglia to the net to score late in the third overtime to give the Detroit Red Wings a 2-1 lead in the 2002 Stanley Cup finals, and that was that. All of their very old legs were suddenly rejuvenated; the momentum the Hurricanes brought home with them from Detroit after winning the opener there in overtime evaporated. That game was the series, and not only in hindsight. Everyone knew it at the time.

Paul Maurice was on the losing side of that one, and the winning side Friday morning, and for a brief period of time in the third overtime was the coach for the longest games in both teams’ history. There was a lot of that going on as the clock kept ticking, digging deeper and deeper into the NHL record book, and again when it ended.

The Hurricanes’ seven-game overtime winning streak came to an end. They lost an OT playoff game at home for the first time since 2009. They fell to 1-6 all time in multiple-OT games, with three of those losses in this building, and a fourth in Greensboro. Interestingly enough, of those five previous series — they lost a pair to Nashville in 2021 — they’ve ended up winning the past two, despite the lengthy losses. But that hasn’t been the case in NHL history. Of the five games that went longer than this one, the winning team won all five series.

So it’s a long climb back from this for the Hurricanes after their first overtime playoff loss at home since 2009, and in a series that goes every other night, as relentlessly as this game wore on into the night, playing from Thursday into Friday leaves precious little time to regroup after being “on the shitty side of it,” as Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said.

At some point in these intervening 40 hours, the Hurricanes will have to stand up straight, shake off the bruises, flush the lactic acid and clear their minds of the feeling that they lost twice in one night. It only counts once in the series, as they’re all quick to say, but there’s no guarantee that’s the truth. They still have to make it so.

Never miss a Luke DeCock column. Sign up at tinyurl.com/lukeslatest to have them delivered directly to your email inbox as soon as they post.

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This story was originally published May 19, 2023, 3:01 AM.

RALEIGH, N.C. — You can soon walk through more of downtown Raleigh with a cup of alcohol.

What You Need To Know

The Raleigh City Council has voted to expand the social district and the hours for fun. The extended hours of operation and added areas will begin on Aug. 15.

#ICYMI I am sure most of you are watching the Carolina Hurricanes. (as you should be) For those of you seeing this, the Raleigh City Council has approved an expansion of the downtown social district. Current boundaries are in, and future boundaries are purple. @SpecNews1RDU pic.twitter.com/zHWjDZx2YD

— Patrick Karl Thomas (@PatThomasNews) May 19, 2023

What’s better than ordering a drink at one joint and bee-bopping over to another with the same adult beverage? Kim Miller said just about nothing.

“I'm hoping it can definitely bring some new faces our way,” Miller said.

Miller is the general manager of the Flying Saucer in downtown and has been for three years.

“It was good. It was definitely welcoming news,” Miller said.

The city council is adding more streets, cross-streets and parts of downtown to the Sip N’ Stroll District. When Miller heard that, all she could see were dollar signs.

Due to rave reviews taken from survey participants, the city council is widening the open container policy to more of the Warehouse District and portions of the Capital District up to Hillsborough Street.

Some of the feedback the city council received is that the social district HAS led to increased sales. There have been little to no issues with public intoxication, and the area for open containers needs more permanent signage. @SpecNews1RDU pic.twitter.com/xG8S7Vz55v

— Patrick Karl Thomas (@PatThomasNews) May 19, 2023

The boundaries extend to West Morgan Street where you can find Miller's draught emporium.

“I feel like the city is always doing things to bring business down our way. Really kind of help out businesses that are in downtown Raleigh so that is nice,” Miller said.

Miller said the restaurant has averaged $55,000 a week in sales after lifting safety restrictions, which beats its pre-pandemic revenue in 2019.

“It’s been really good. Honestly, since the pandemic, we’ve seen a boom in business,” she said.

Based on feedback from other downtown bars and restaurants, the social district has been financially good for them, too.

Furthermore, 77% of survey respondents appear to see the social district has a positive addition to the downtown area. @SpecNews1RDU pic.twitter.com/7200SiEdQS

— Patrick Karl Thomas (@PatThomasNews) May 19, 2023.

All of this comes as the restaurant celebrates its 23rd anniversary this weekend. Plus, who can say no to patio season when the weather is warm, the drinks are cold and the company is good.

Below are some of the things to keep in mind while sipping and strolling:

• More areas where you can carry your to-go beverage and more establishments that can participate

• Change in operating hours from 10 a.m.-10 p.m., seven days per week

• New permanent signs throughout the social district area

• New permanent trash and recycling receptacles

Moore Square and Nash Square are not part of the expansion.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Piece by piece and block by block, the “Art of the Brick” Exhibition in Raleigh is bringing creativity and art to a whole new dimension.

“When you get to see it in person, it’s not like you’re going into an art museum and seeing a painting on a wall,” said Ryan Haines, an operations manager with the Exhibition Hub.

Haines said the contemporary art exhibition features more than 90 pieces of work that are all created by more than a million LEGO bricks.

The artist, Nathan Sawaya, left his job as a lawyer and has become known as one of the best LEGO builders in the world. The Art of the Brick exhibit has been seen by millions of people and has toured more than 100 cities and 24 countries. It features some of Sawaya’s own creative work as well as art inspired by masterpieces including Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ and Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa.’

“We were excited to bring it to the Triangle area—it’s been a long time coming since we wanted to bring it to Raleigh and it was the perfect time to bring it,” Haines said.

Haines said the art exhibition replaces the popular Van Gogh Immersive Experience at Pleasant Valley Promenade.

Buddy Lipscomb, who visited from California, decided to take his two grandchildren to the exhibition on opening day.

“There’s a lot of detail and you have to stop and examine it hard to really see it all,” he said.

Lipscomb said Sawaya’s work brought back memories of his son who also grew up playing with LEGOs. Pointing to his grandchildren, he added,

“The kids have followed after that and they have tons of LEGOs,” he added. “It’s really cool to see the sculptures, the way they were built, and the imagination behind it.”

Haines said the sculptures are not only sparking childhood memories for some, but he said the artist also hopes to demonstrate the potential of creativity and imagination. Through several rooms,

Haines said visitors can see a variety of the artist’s work—it’s open to the whole family. Haines said at the end of the exhibit, visitors and children can also have an opportunity to use their own creativity where they can build their own LEGO sculptures and color Sawaya’s work to see it displayed electronically.

The exhibit runs through the summer and is free for children under the age of four. For more information, click here.