Cali Burger, the halal fast-casual restaurant that took over a former Arby's building on Raleigh's Hillsborough Street, is closing its doors by the end of September. The restaurant announced the news on Instagram, thanking its supporters, customers and community, and said it's already working to secure a new location in the city.
Cali Burger opened in 2024 at 3415 Hillsborough St., serving a halal menu of burgers, milkshakes, salads, wraps and taquitos, along with fried offerings like fish, shrimp, cheese, zucchini, pickles and onions, according to the News & Observer. Halal food is cleaned according to Islamic law, and the restaurant carved out a niche on a stretch of Hillsborough Street between North Carolina State University and Meredith College that has long served hungry students. The same report notes the restaurant will continue service until the end of the month while it says goodbye to regulars.
A Property Long Destined for Redevelopment
Cali Burger's building sits on land that changed hands years before the restaurant ever opened. Raleigh real estate firm CityPlat bought the 0.36-acre lot in August 2022 for $2.5 million, according to a report from CityPlat, as the final parcel in an assemblage planned for a mixed-use development with more than 275 market-rate apartments. That means the building housing Cali Burger's kitchen was always intended for eventual demolition.
The rezoning for that vertical development was approved, but construction stalled. CityPlat principal Pat Moore told the Technician in March 2025 that high building costs and interest rates pushed back the timeline, so the firm chose to lease the building to Cali Burger to collect rental income while it waited for market conditions to improve, per the Technician's report. That arrangement gave Cali Burger a runway on the corridor, but never a permanent home.
Landmark Sign Came Down Before the Burgers Arrived
Before Cali Burger, the site was home to an Arby's, which closed ahead of the halal restaurant's 2024 opening. The fast-food chain's oversized cowboy hat sign had towered over the property since the late 1960s, adding what many considered historical character to Hillsborough Street, per the News & Observer's reporting. The sign was taken down on July 6, 2022, and while it was never designated a Raleigh historic landmark, the paper notes an inspection found the structure itself was found to be over 20 years old.
Part of a Broader Wave of Triangle Restaurant Closures
Cali Burger's closure lands amid a string of Triangle restaurant shakeups this year. Veteran-owned Southern soul food concept Flavor Hills opened its downtown Raleigh location at 319 Fayetteville Street in January 2024 before shutting down all of its Raleigh and Durham storefronts last month to pivot into catering and private dining, according to Hoodline's earlier coverage. Café Root Cellar in Pittsboro, which had operated for almost a decade, announced it will serve its final regular meals on September 19, shifting its Chatham Park kitchen to support the Feed-Well Fridges food-insecurity nonprofit while keeping its Chapel Hill location open.
Industry data compiled by the National Restaurant Association and Restaurant Dive point to a wider trend behind these closures: customer traffic at U.S. casual dining operators declined from mid-2025 through mid-2026, with nearly 10% of casual dining chains facing risk of closure this year, Tasting Table reported. North Carolina had registered nearly 15,000 new businesses statewide in 2024, the same year Cali Burger and several other new food concepts opened their doors in the Triangle — a boom that has since collided with tougher operating conditions.
Hillsborough Street's Fast-Growing Skyline
The Hillsborough Street corridor around NC State is also transforming physically, adding pressure on small storefronts like Cali Burger's. Hub Raleigh, a 12-story student housing tower with 2,195 beds, opened on the strip in July, a sign of the high-density redevelopment reshaping the area once dominated by single-story fast-food pads. Cali Burger's affiliated Cali Style Burger brand still operates halal burger storefronts elsewhere in eastern North Carolina, including in Rocky Mount, Wilson and Greenville, meaning the concept isn't disappearing entirely even as its Raleigh flagship winds down.
For now, Cali Burger says it plans to keep serving Raleigh customers until it finds a new spot. The News & Observer reported it will update its story after hearing back from the restaurant.
