Fuquay-Varina Brewery Plans Cocktail Bar Built Around a Berlin Airlift Plane

Aviator Brewing Company is proposing a new cocktail bar in Fuquay-Varina that would build part of its interior around the fuselage of a real World War II-era cargo plane. The proposed Aviator Airplane Lounge would sit at 620 Brewing Drive and add roughly 2,425 square feet of new gathering space to the brewery's existing campus, with no exact opening date announced yet.

The project was first reported by WhatNow, which noted that the Town of Fuquay-Varina is currently reviewing site plans for the lounge. According to that report, Aviator Gold Leaf LLC is listed as the developer and DesignLine Studios as the project engineer, and representatives had not responded with additional information by the time of publication. The lounge would feature a cocktail bar and incorporate an airplane hull into part of its design, adding another concept to Aviator's growing footprint in town.

A Real Berlin Airlift Plane as the Centerpiece

The aircraft hull planned for the bar is no replica. It belongs to the Spirit of Freedom, a Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport plane that flew supply runs during the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift, according to General Aviation News. The plane had previously served as a flying museum before ending up in Aviator founder Mark Doble's hands.

That path to Fuquay-Varina involved a tornado. The outlet reports the C-54 was damaged beyond repair in 2021 while parked for an avionics refit at Lowcountry Regional Airport in Walterboro, South Carolina. Before the hull was donated, its original owner transferred the aircraft's preserved artifacts to a replacement airframe, per the same account.

Getting the wrecked plane from South Carolina to Wake County required some old-fashioned dismantling. Workers used a gas-powered chainsaw to cut the aluminum aircraft into sections small enough to fit on flatbed trucks, a process that took about eight hours before loading, according to A Relic Reborn, published by Suburban Living Magazine.

Part of a Bigger Aviation-Themed Campus

The lounge would join Aviator's five-acre production campus on Brewing Drive, which the company opened in April 2025 alongside its Hangar Bar and a fully automated 60-barrel brewhouse, according to Aviator Brewing Company. That site plan also envisions an outdoor concert amphitheater, the HardDeck Steakhouse and additional event spaces, meaning the airplane-themed bar is one piece of a larger entertainment complex rather than a standalone novelty.

Aviator's aviation branding isn't a marketing gimmick layered on after the fact. The company was founded in November 2008 inside a small local airplane hangar, brewing its first commercial batches in two repurposed 300-gallon dairy tanks, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. That humble start has since grown into a portfolio that also includes distilled spirits like vodka, gin and bourbon, per General Aviation News, which makes a craft cocktail lounge a natural extension of what the brewery already produces.

The company's leadership has also drawn recent statewide recognition. In August, the Small Business Administration named founder Mark Doble and CFO Walter D. Buddy Everhart Jr. the North Carolina Small Business Persons of the Year, a milestone CBS 17 covered. Everhart, a former 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper, joined Doble to help manage the company's financial growth.

An Established Local Hospitality Network

The new lounge wouldn't be Aviator's first foray beyond beer. Beyond the Brewing Drive campus, the company also operates a tap house and kitchen at 600 E. Broad St. in a restored historic train depot, along with a barbecue smokehouse and pizzeria elsewhere in town, according to Main & Broad.

That expansion is happening against the backdrop of explosive growth in southern Wake County. Fuquay-Varina's population climbed from 17,937 residents in 2010 to an estimated 48,536 by July 2025, making it one of North Carolina's fastest-growing towns, per data cited by Raleigh Realty. That kind of population surge has fueled sustained demand for new entertainment and dining options in a town that, not so long ago, was a much smaller community.

For now, the Aviator Airplane Lounge remains in the town's site plan review process, and no opening date has been set. Whether the finished bar preserves the Spirit of Freedom's wartime history in visible detail or simply uses the hull as backdrop, the plane's journey from a tornado-wrecked airfield in South Carolina to a cocktail lounge in Fuquay-Varina is already part of the local lore before the doors even open.