RDU airport lacks free places to sit at a table. This new lounge will help.
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- RDU will convert the old BurgerFi/Jason’s Deli seating area into a 24-hour lounge.
- Pepsi Bottling Ventures will provide tables, seating, TVs and two Pepsi machines.
- The lounge will open by year’s end and stay at least a year while RDU seeks a tenant.
If you buy a pizza at Guy Fieri’s or a giant Italian sub from Bongiorno & Son at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, you don’t have many options but to eat it on your lap at the gate.
But that will soon change. RDU plans to convert an empty restaurant space in Terminal 2 into a lounge with tables and chairs open 24 hours a day to anyone looking to eat a take-away meal or work on a laptop.
The lounge will open by year’s end in the old seating area for the BurgerFi and Jason’s Deli. The two restaurants closed in January when their lease expired. While RDU looks for a replacement, the now-unused dining area will provide much-needed table space in an often crowded airport.
The idea for the lounge came from Pepsi Bottling Ventures, which has a contract to provide soft drinks at RDU. The company will provide new tables, seating and TVs, as well as two Pepsi machines, and will market the space as the Pepsi customer lounge, said Alyssa Whelan, RDU’s concessions business manager.
“It’s something Pepsi has proposed to us for a couple of years now,” Whelan said. “We just didn’t have the space.”
Pepsi has similar lounges at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Philadelphia International Airport.
Several RDU restaurants offer tables for their customers, and American, Delta and United airlines have lounges open to flyers who qualify. But there is very limited table seating
The lounge will be open at least a year, perhaps longer depending on how quickly RDU finds a tenant to fill the restaurant space. The kitchen and service counters for the old BurgerFi and Jason’s Deli will remain behind temporary walls, where a future restaurant can take shape.
Several RDU restaurants offer tables for their customers, and American, Delta and United airlines have lounges open to flyers who qualify.
But there is very limited open table seating, something passengers have been asking for, said Tammie Hall-Roberts, who heads the RDU Airport Authority board. Hall-Roberts said she recently bought pizza from Guy’s Pizza Joint and did what most everyone else does.
“We went over to the next gate and put our food in our lap, and we sat and we ate,” she said. “So I am first witness that this space will be of great value to our passengers.”
This story was originally published July 10, 2026 at 10:07 AM.
