Drive the stretch where Santa Fe Drive meets the All American Freeway and you'll pass two things at once: a shopping center parking lot that's been full for years, and a construction site that's been promising to change that for almost two years now. Both are worth paying attention to if you live in this corridor, because they tell two different stories about the same problem. One story just got resolved. The other is still waiting on its ending.
The apartment count nobody's been checking against the restaurant count
Here's the number that explains why this corridor has felt underserved for so long, even as apartment complexes kept filling in around it. Commercial leasing materials for the Midtown at Coalition project put more than 1,800 apartment units within a half-mile radius of that Santa Fe Drive intersection alone, with a five-minute trade radius drawing a daytime population of 13,765 people and 7,675 workers. That's before counting the 312-unit complex going up as part of the project itself.
Compare that to what's actually been available to eat within walking distance of all those units, and the mismatch becomes obvious. Anyone who's lived near the base gates already knows this. If you wanted a sit-down meal that wasn't a drive-thru, you got in your car and drove out to the Skibo Road corridor near Cross Creek Mall, where Glensford Commons has quietly become the default answer for years. That's not a knock on Glensford Commons. It's a real observation about geography: the people are here, at the gates, but the restaurants have mostly been there, several minutes down the road.
This year is the first time that's starting to shift, and it's worth being specific about what's actually changed versus what's still under construction.
What actually opened this week
Biscuit Belly opened its doors in the Glensford Commons area on Tuesday, August 4, with a grand opening celebration on Friday, August 7 that ran from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Kentucky-based brunch chain built its Fayetteville launch specifically around the base community rather than treating it as an afterthought. The restaurant offers an ongoing 10 percent discount to active-duty service members and veterans, and it leaned into the identity of the surrounding population with "Paratrooper Biscuit Man" shirts and stickers as a tribute to nearby Fort Bragg families. Opening week included free drip coffee with purchase, a loyalty program that gives new members a free "Bonut," and a giveaway for a year of free biscuits.
The detail worth sitting with here isn't the biscuits themselves. It's that a regional chain expanding into North Carolina looked at this specific market and decided the smart move was to brand around military identity rather than open a generic location and hope for foot traffic. That's a read on the neighborhood, not just a menu launch.
The bigger project that's still finishing
The more consequential build is The Forge Food Hall, the anchor amenity inside the Midtown at Coalition development at the intersection of Santa Fe Drive and the All American Freeway. This is a two-story project: four vendor stalls and a common seating area with outdoor dining on the ground floor, and a full brewery space on the second floor with its own bar, seating, and a covered outdoor dining area. It sits at the convergence of Bragg Boulevard, the All American Freeway, I-295, and Santa Fe Drive, about a mile south of the Amazon fulfillment center on Bragg Boulevard and roughly four miles from the base itself. The project will eventually be anchored nearby by an incoming Sun Asian Supermarket, giving the corridor a grocery draw it hasn't had before.
Here's the part that matters if you're planning to actually go: as of a February 2026 restaurant industry report, The Forge was targeting a June 25, 2026 opening. By late May, local coverage described the development as one that "continues taking shape" while construction and planning activity moved forward. That original summer target has already come and gone without a confirmed opening. If you've been holding off on a Friday night plan waiting for the brewery to open, don't build your weekend around it yet. Check before you drive over.
The developer named the project deliberately. The word "forge" was chosen as a nod to the soldiers and veterans of the base who've been shaped by military discipline, tying the building's identity directly to the population it's meant to serve. Whether or not that resonates with you personally, it's a second data point in the same pattern Biscuit Belly showed: businesses moving into this corridor are building their brand around the base, not just their location near it.
The established options if you're hungry today
If you want dinner tonight rather than a construction update, the working answer is still the Glensford Commons retail corridor. The area already carries a real dining cluster: Carolina Ale House, Bonefish Grill, Red Robin, Bubba's 33, Kickback Jack's, and Chili's, along with quick options like Firehouse Subs. The shopping center itself is anchored by Kohl's and Old Navy, with the kind of parking and layout that makes it an easy default when you don't want to think about where to go.
None of that is new news if you've lived here a while. What's worth noting is that this cluster has been carrying the dining load for the entire base-adjacent population almost by itself, which is exactly why the apartment-to-restaurant math at the Santa Fe Drive intersection has felt so lopsided. Glensford Commons isn't failing anyone. It's just been asked to serve a much wider radius than one shopping center should reasonably have to cover.
What this actually means if you live here
The short version: supply is starting to catch up to a population that's been here for a while. The 1,800-plus apartment units near the Santa Fe Drive corridor didn't appear this year. They've been filling in for longer than the restaurant options have kept pace with. What changed in 2026 is that businesses finally started building for that density directly at the intersection instead of expecting residents to drive out to find it.
That's useful context whether you're weighing a Tuesday dinner decision or just trying to understand why this stretch of road has felt like it's always under construction. The apartments came first. The restaurants are still catching up. Biscuit Belly is proof the catch-up has started. The Forge is proof it isn't finished.
If you're already living in a home near the base and wondering what a similar level of attention to detail looks like when it's applied to construction rather than biscuits, that's a conversation worth having directly. Ace Development Group builds and manages projects across this same Fort Bragg corridor, and we track these openings and construction timelines as closely as we track our own job sites. Schedule a consultation with Ace to talk through what's happening in your neighborhood, whether that's a home project, a resale question, or just wanting a straight answer about what's actually open this month.
