Fayetteville has no shortage of places to eat and drink, and a real share of them trace back to someone who served. Fort Bragg sits right next door. The 82nd Airborne Division and Army Special Operations Command rotate thousands of soldiers through Cumberland County every year, and a lot of them stay after the uniform comes off. Some of them open kitchens and breweries.
This post profiles three of those businesses — Gaston Brewing Company, Dirtbag Ales Brewery & Taproom, and Gusto Napoletano Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria — and explains why food and beverage tends to be such a natural second career for veterans in the first place.
Why Food and Beverage Pulls in So Many Veterans
The fit is not sentimental. Running a kitchen through a Friday dinner rush is a logistics problem before it is anything else: inventory on hand, tickets timed, stations staffed, quality held steady while all of it happens at once. A senior NCO who ran supply or managed a platoon has already solved harder versions of that problem under worse conditions. The jump to a service line is shorter than it looks.
Brewing rewards a different military habit. Good beer comes from a repeatable process — the same grain bill, the same temperatures, the same timing, batch after batch. Sloppy process shows up in the glass. Veterans who spent years being held to a standard, and holding others to one, tend to take to that kind of work.
There is also the matter of the room itself. A taproom or a neighborhood restaurant is a place people gather, and gathering spots matter more to veterans rebuilding a civilian life than most civilians realize. Plenty of owners will tell you the business was partly about building that room on purpose.
Three Veteran-Owned Spots in the Fayetteville Area
Gaston Brewing Company
Gaston Brewing Company brews its own beer and runs a full kitchen on Hay Street, in the middle of downtown Fayetteville. That location is worth pausing on. Downtown Hay Street has been the center of the city's revitalization push for years, and an independent brewpub anchoring a block of it does more than sell pints — it gives the district a reason for people to walk it after six o'clock. Pair the house beer with the kitchen menu and make an evening of it. You can reach Gaston Brewing at (910) 748-0580 or at gastonbrewing.com.
Dirtbag Ales Brewery & Taproom
Dirtbag Ales sits in Hope Mills, just off I-95 — easy to find whether you are coming from Fayetteville or passing through on the interstate. It is a craft brewery with a taproom and on-site food, built from the start to be family- and pet-friendly. That choice has paid off: the taproom has grown into a standing weekend gathering spot for the wider Fayetteville-area community, the kind of place where regulars know each other. Call (910) 426-2537 or visit dirtbagales.com to check hours and what is on tap.
Gusto Napoletano Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria
Gusto Napoletano is on Raeford Road, and it is owned by U.S. Navy veteran Nadia Minniti. The kitchen does authentic Neapolitan cooking, including true Neapolitan-style pizza. If you have never paid attention to that distinction, it matters: real Neapolitan pizza is governed by a specific dough, a very hot oven, and a bake measured in seconds rather than minutes. Getting it right every time takes discipline, and that is the whole appeal. You can find the menu and details at gustonapoletano.com.
How to Tell a Business Is Actually Veteran-Owned
Military-themed branding is everywhere in food and drink. Camouflage labels and tactical-sounding names sell, so plenty of businesses use them — and none of that styling tells you whether the owner ever served. The look is not the proof.
The directory handles this directly. Every listing carries a veteran-status label. A "Veteran-Owned" label means the owner has self-certified that status. A "Verified Veteran-Owned" label means a veteran owner has gone a step further and confirmed it through a quick, private document check. All three businesses above are listed as veteran-owned today, and any owner can claim a listing and complete verification to upgrade the badge.
If you want the full picture for this industry — every veteran-owned food and beverage business we track, plus a plain-language FAQ on certifications like VOSB and SDVOSB — the veteran-owned food and beverage category page collects it in one place.
Spend Where It Counts
Choosing a veteran-owned restaurant or brewery does more than buy a meal. Veteran owners hire other veterans and military spouses at well above the civilian average, so the money tends to recirculate through the community it came from. In a town like Fayetteville, that loop is short and it is real.
Start with the three above. When you want more, browse the veteran-owned business directory for restaurants, breweries, and everything else — or, if you run a veteran-owned business yourself, add your free listing so the next customer looking for a place like yours can actually find it.