A new coffee shop opened in the Triangle and immediately caused a traffic jam
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Dutch Bros opened Morrisville location Dec. 11, attracting long drive‑thru lines.
- Queue spilled onto Morrisville Parkway, blocking right lane and slowing traffic.
- Grand opening offered $3 medium drinks.
Dutch Bros, a popular West Coast coffee chain with more than 1,000 locations nationwide, opened its first North Carolina location this week in Morrisville.
The Thursday, Dec. 11, grand opening was met with intense traffic around the new location at Morrisville Parkway and Chapel Hill Road. Around noon Thursday, The News & Observer saw a long line of cars stretched from the Dutch Bros parking lot past the Sheetz a few storefronts down, blocking Morrisville Parkway’s right-most lane. There was a lengthy drive-thru line plus a crowd of people surrounding the walk-up window.
An Instagram video by our reporting partner ABC11 shows dozens of cars braking, moving slowly and completely stopped along Morrisville Parkway, waiting to pull into Dutch Bros.
The N&O reached out to a representative for Dutch Bros for comment on Friday morning.
Is Dutch Bros coffee that good?
“Coffee was worth the wait!” one Instagram commenter on the post says. “Wait till you find out that the coffee tastes like coffee yall. It’s crazy! Totally worth the wait!!!” another says.
A TikTok video about the opening yesterday was met with more negative comments: “Spent two hours in the line,” one commenter said, adding a crying face emoji. “The line extends past the Sheetz,” another said.
“I live right by there and it took me FOREVER to get home from getting gas at Sheetz,” one TikTok commenter said.
The coffee shop offered $3 medium drinks Thursday for the grand opening.
How to avoid the traffic
“The Morrisville Police Department was aware that Dutch Bros. Coffee would, more than likely, draw a crowd with their grand opening. We are patrolling the area like we normally would,” Rox Cruz, public information officer for the Morrisville Police Department, told The N&O in an emailed statement Friday morning.
“With any new business whose opening has a lot of hype around it, you can almost always expect lines and delays. Drivers were waiting patiently yesterday and caused no known safety concerns for the flow of traffic on Morrisville Parkway. Delays should be expected in the next few days and drivers should use caution or plan another route if they want to avoid it altogether.”
The N&O’s Lexi Solomon contributed to this report. This story has been updated with information from the Morrisville Police Department.
This story was originally published December 12, 2025 at 10:25 AM.
