[upbeat music]
- Fayetteville's a little big town.
- You get the feel of the big city,
but you still have that peace and quiet
of a smaller hometown.
- You've got beautiful natural places,
botanical gardens, the food scene is amazing.
- [Jenny] You can't deny the military influence
on our community, the military brings in thousands
of new faces to our communities every year.
- We really love this community and how it
really embraces a melting pot of different cultures
and identities and we all have it represented here.
- I like to say that Fayetteville
is my adopted hometown.
- You find your second family, essentially.
That's what this city does best,
like, better than any other city in the world,
because of the people here.
- I didn't think after my tour in the army
that I would stay, that wasn't my plan,
but Fayetteville certainly grew on me
and I enjoy Fayetteville and this is my home.
[upbeat music]
[upbeat guitar music]
Fayetteville was two small villages
on the Cape Fear River, it was Campbellton
and where we're sitting now was Cross Creek,
and after the American Revolution,
the General Assembly combined the two villages
and called it Fayetteville.
We're the first city in the United States
named for the Marquis de Lafayette,
and he was a young French nobleman that came
to the aid of the colonies during the revolution.
That's where we get our name.
- A lot of people don't realize that our history
predates the Revolutionary War, and so you
really cannot turn a corner here
without tripping over our vast history.
- Behind us is the Market House and on that site
stood the State House where the United States
Constitution was ratified, bringing North Carolina
in as the 12th state in 1789.
We have museums.
I'm the director of the Fayetteville Transportation
Local History Museum which is a local history museum.
The Museum of the Cape Fear is
a regional North Carolina Museum.
We have the Airborne and Special Operations Museum.
On post we have the Special Forces Museum
and the 82nd Airborne Museum.
So, there's a lot of culture here, a lot to learn.
- Fayetteville is full of cultural diversity,
but because of the military influence,
we've also traveled and the majority
of our community has traveled all over the world.
So you get to be in this community that is
bringing back these unique thoughts and ideas
and experiences from all these different cultures
and all these different parts of the globe.
So, it's really cool.
[upbeat guitar music]
- I grew up in Puerto Rico and baseball is,
I mean, it's the sport.
I love the energy here.
This is a social event, every game,
because you see so many friends
and the music, the game, the players.
[yelling in Spanish]
I am that crazy Puerto Rican lady.
- So, welcome to Segra Stadium,
the brand new 40.2 million dollar stadium
right in the heart of downtown Fayetteville.
This is the home of the Houston Astros'
Class A Advanced Minor League Baseball Affiliate.
Babe Ruth actually hit his first professional
home run in baseball only a few miles away
from this exact spot.
So, Fayetteville is truly the home
of the All-American sport of baseball.
To be here and to see families coming down
Hay Street excited about coming to a baseball game
and stopping in one of the businesses to grab
something to eat before they come into the stadium
or, ooh, there's something that I wanna get
for Grandma from one of the local boutiques,
it's really special to see this wonderful embracing.
- We get to see so much diversity
and I love that, I think it's really good.
[upbeat guitar music]
Lake Pines Swim Club, it's a spring-fed lake.
There's diving boards, slides, grills,
volleyball, horse shoe, ladder ball, basketball.
We offer a lot of different things
for people to play, we do.
There are people who say, I've lived here
for 40 years and I didn't know this was here.
[zipline buzzing]
- We're here in beautiful, lovely Carver's Falls.
[upbeat music]
This is our 70 plus acre piece of land here
in Fayetteville, North Carolina
that holds, as USA Today called us,
one of the top 10 ziplines in the country.
- [Instructor] Go up whenever you're ready.
- [Russ] You're gonna have fun, you're gonna
learn something about the environment,
and you're gonna spend two and half hours
in the trees and suspension bridges
and nature, like you've never done before.
- We're excited to bring something kind of different.
You know, something new to our city.
[gentle music]
We are Cornerstone Design Company,
and we build custom furniture.
We have home decor and lifestyle items
and we just launched our own candle line
in the beginning of March.
We have candle making workshops every single weekend.
They are BYOB, so you can bring your wine
and go through our candle library.
We have 32 scents and you get to hand pour
your own coconut wax candles.
So, now you are officially a candler.
- Oh that smells good.
I can't wait.
- The draw to downtown Fayetteville
has really come a long way.
- I love to take people to the downtown area.
It's constantly growing.
We even have an art in public places program now.
So people can walk around and see public art,
and then, of course, The Arts Council.
Some things that I like to do when I bring
family and friends over, the Botanical Gardens
is so beautiful, and of course, local restaurants.
- There's a big foodie scene here.
We love to eat here in Fayetteville.
[upbeat music]
- I'm Chef Yamani, owner of Straight Drop Seafood
and Drop By The River Seafood.
We have large platters.
The biggest seafood platters in Fayetteville.
You don't know it, but we're known for our crack sauce,
our drop sauce, and our drop seasoning.
I created that about three years ago out of my house
in Georgia where Straight Drop originally got started.
- We have savory and sweet pies.
We like to say you can get pie with a side of pie.
[upbeat music]
The recipes are kind of an amalgamation
of our imaginations, some of our traditional upbringings,
like for example, I was brought up in Missouri.
So, I've got homestyle chicken pot pie,
your beef pot pie, things like that,
and then as we worked together
with basically anybody who would work
for us in the kitchen would say,
why don't you try this or why don't you try that.
I did this tribute wall here
at The Fayetteville Pie Company.
Customers who would come in can see a little bit
of the history, and also a tribute to my grandma.
We like to use real butter, real sugar,
real flour and everything because we want
it to taste just like it's being home baked.
It's coming straight from your grandma's kitchen.
- Well, we like to drink beer and beer costs money.
So, two things at one time.
Make your own beer, save money, make money at the same time.
[upbeat music]
Where you're at is Bright Light Brewing Company
downtown Fayetteville.
We're right across from the city hall
in the heart of downtown.
It's a microbrewery at this point.
We've actually concocted about 18 different types of beer.
Of course, they're all ales, but we go
from the light beer all the way to the dark,
try to tie everything in with having good beer,
but also be a family friendly establishment
'cause we all have kids ourselves.
[upbeat music]
[gentle music]
- The history and heroes, hometown feeling,
we certainly have that because Fayetteville
isn't so big that you don't have that hometown feeling.
You experience that right here
in the downtown area, and lots of heroes
have come out of Fayetteville, and lots
of history's been made in Fayetteville.
So, all of those things are right here in Fayetteville.
And again, if you're traveling on 95
and don't make that stop here in Fayetteville,
you've really missed something.
- For more information about things to do
in Fayetteville, go to visitfayettevillenc.com.