Fuzion Cafe and Lounge, a hookah bar that recently opened next to the Freshberry Frozen Yogurt Cafe on Hillsborough Street, offers a combination of sweet treats, coffees, cafe food and hookah, all while maintaining a calm and relaxed atmosphere. The new location opened its doors at the beginning of the year.
Fuzion started off by looking at other hookah lounges in the area and taking the good and bad pieces to pull together the best combination with cleanliness, quality and elegance of the lounge, according to Zach Stone, the manager of Fuzion and an NC State alumnus.
While there are already hookah lounges along Hillsborough Street, Stone said that Fuzion hopes to fill a different niche.
“We’re not one of the really up-beat lounges,” Stone said. “We like to keep things a little bit calm. We spice things up every once in a while with a belly dancer that comes in every couple of weeks. We’ll have DJs.”
Stone said that the belly dancer usually comes on the weekends depending on her availability, and the DJs will come on Thursday events that Fuzion hosts. Most of the crowd comes in on Fridays and Saturdays.
The coffee, desserts and drinks offered contribute more to the generally calm mood of the Fuzion lounge. Some of the food offered on its menu includes appetizers, coffee milkshakes, breakfast and sandwiches.
The space is mostly lit with blue lighting and is styled with a clean blue and black look, though the lighting color can change. The lounge has several couches and chairs and emphasizes a more cafe atmosphere.
“It’s more emphasized here,” Stone said. “The owners are of Moroccan descent, so they’re somewhat big on coffee and tea and stuff like that. They wanted to really mesh it together.”
A business that offers hookah is usually paired with another service or theme for customers, like Fuzion’s cafe and lounge.
“They pair really well together, so it’s common in a lot of hookah lounges to try and pair things together with the hookah,” Stone said. “People come in here, and if they’re not big on the hookah part, they can have coffee or tea.”
Along with Fuzion’s vision of offering something different, they also considered the advantages of this location for their business. The proximity to campus was the main reason for setting up Fuzion on Hillsborough Street, according to Stone.
Fuzion’s audience varies with the university being nearby, as well as people from Raleigh who walk along Hillsborough Street. Stone said it’s a mix between the college crowd and graduates.
“I like to chill and relax, and that’s about it—and there’s good service,” said Mercedez Sanderson, a junior studying education at William Peace University.
With finals around the corner, students will be under a lot of stress and want a nice place to study, and the D.H. Hill library will often become crowded. Fuzion stays open until about one to two a.m. usually, according to Stone.
“During exam times, if they’re trying to study during the day, we offer a quiet setting,” he said. “If people come in here, and they’d like to study, we can turn down the music or anything like that. If they need a pick-me-up or something like that, we have coffee.”
