Welcome to The Line, a newsletter for Cary and Western Wake from The Assembly Network. The Line connects the dots for local life with timely info, relevant news, interesting people and expert guides. 📩 Forwarded by a friend? Sign up here.

🚉 Arriving Now

1. Breakfast pop-ups in Cary and Apex
2. What would a proposed data center sound like?
3. NC Chinese Lantern Festival opens
4. Can you guess this coffee shop?

Outside the Box Breakfasts

Burrito Bois at The Albatross: The Downtown Cary business with indoor golf simulators and noteworthy smashburgers started a pop-up breakfast burrito menu about four months ago. Albatross co-founder Paul Wasmund started it with the help of business partner Sean Ryan and friend Topher Fulton, but now it’s a one-man effort (along with “our bartender and golden ‘90s hip-hop,” he said).

The menu includes variations on a breakfast burrito, like the signature Chipotle Cheesy and the Thicc Boi Crunchwrap (my order), with sausage, “fluffy” eggs, tots, cheese, sriracha aioli, and a crunchy cheese crust. Coconut churros with salted caramel round out the menu, along with a cocktail and cold-brewed coffee menu. 

📍Find it: 9 a.m.-usually 11 a.m., The Albatross Golf Pub, 140 E. Chatham Street, Cary

Bad Oven at Sweet Talk Cafe: This Beaver Creek Crossings coffee shop is worth a trip for the desserts, like Bingsoo (Korean style milk-based shaved ice), croffles (croissant + waffle), matcha, and Cafe Sua Da (iced Vietnamese coffee topped with sea salt cream). 

But we’re talking about breakfast pop-ups, and this Apex shop stocks the coveted Bad Oven Purple Bun. It’s one of two locations–the other is in Asheville–where you can walk up and order the brightly-colored ube pandesal, a soft and fluffy Filipino breakfast roll. 

It’s the signature item for Bad Oven, a microbakery Cary resident Peanut Dela Cruz started during the early days of the pandemic. Her online orders go live on occasion; sign up for her newsletter to to know when. Pickup is typically at Parkside Commons in Cary or Southpoint Mall in Durham. More often than not, Bad Oven offerings sell out quickly, making Sweet Talk a sweet spot to nab a purple bun. 

📍Find it: Sweet Talk Cafe & Desserts, 2008 Creekside Landing Drive, Apex. 

FQWL at V Pizza: New in late September, From Queens With Love bagels are kettle boiled in New York City and then baked in V Pizza’s wood-fired ovens. The menu is simple: pick a bagel and cream cheese combo for $5.49, add coffee for another buck. The bagels are a neat lineup of plain, everything, poppyseed, or cinnamon raisin. Cream cheese flavors include a delicious blackberry and honey schmear (pictured). 

📍Find it: 7-11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, V Pizza in Cary, 1389 Kildaire Farm Road, and V Pizza in Brier Creek (which may be closer for some Morrisville folks), 7930 Skyland Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, Raleigh. 

H/T to Readers: Thanks for sharing your breakfast spots! 

🍳 Two readers recommended Barry’s Cafe, a Western Wake restaurant at 2851 Jones Franklin Road in (technically) Raleigh. Reader Lisa said she’s been going since she was a kid. “I take my work team for breakfast meetings there now!” she wrote. 

🥐 Reader Valerie recommended Chanticleer Cafe at 6490 Tryon Road in Cary: “Great pastries, full menu, and family friendly.” 

In Brief | What I’d Tell You Over Breakfast

🔉 Proposed data center developers, local residents talk sound: Jane Porter reports for INDY about the conversation between Natelli Investments and more than 100 Apex area neighbors on Wednesday night. The discussion focused on potential noise from the proposed New Hill Digital Campus, though residents have additional concerns, such as electricity, water usage and emissions from diesel generators on site of the 190-acre property.

  • How loud? The developers proposed a 60-decibel maximum sound level at the property line, which they say is similar to the noise of a normal conversation. A sound study will look at how that noise travels to nearby neighborhoods, such as Jordan Pointe. 
  • What’s next: The developer’s rezoning proposal will go to the planning board and town council for a work session in early 2026.

🏮 The North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival opens Saturday and runs through January 11 at Cary’s Koka Booth Amphitheatre. It’s closed on Christmas Day. More than 50 artisans assemble the lanterns over a 15-day period, and themes for this year include “Chinese culture, mythical creatures, and mysterious nature.”  This year’s festival will include a new display on Symphony Lake.

  • Pro tip: Twilight Session tickets give you access starting at 4:30 p.m., with fewer people and better photo opportunities.

What else?

🚜 Harvest Festival is 12-4 p.m. Saturday at Cary’s Good Hope Farm, a historic, working organic farm. Want to actually be a farmer? Applications are open for the 2026 Farmer Training Program at Good Hope Farm through the Piedmont Conservation Council.

🍼 One suspected case of infant botulism is under investigation in North Carolina in connection with the nationwide ByHeart Inc. Whole Nutrition Infant Formula recall.  

🚆 Is better train food the answer to our travel woes? Eater makes the case.

Guess the Coffee Shop

I’m out here in Western Wake County chatting with you and fueling up with caffeine while I report for The Line. Can you guess where I am? 

Reply to this email or send your guess to line@theassemblync.com. The prize? Bragging rights. 

The Line will be back in your inbox on Tuesday!

Sarah Day Owen Wiskirchen is the head of newsletters for The Assembly Network and editor of The Line.