Downtown Apex: ‘The Peak of Good Living’ Is Worth a Saturday
Two walkable blocks of brick storefronts, antique-store rabbit holes, and a depot that’s been the center of town for a century.
Most people meet Apex through its traffic. You drive through it on US-1 or sit in the Beaver Creek shopping-center sprawl off Highway 64, and you file the whole town under “suburb west of Cary.” Reasonable mistake. But it’s a mistake, because three minutes off those arterials sits one of the best-preserved Main Streets in North Carolina — a National Register Historic District where the brick is original, the railroad still runs right through the middle of it, and the slogan painted on the water tower, “The Peak of Good Living,” predates every focus group that would’ve come up with something worse.
Apex earned its reputation honestly. In 2015 Money Magazine named it the #1 Best Place to Live in America, and again landed it near the top in later years. That brought growth — a lot of it, fast — but the old downtown core got protected instead of bulldozed, and that’s the part worth your Saturday. Here’s how to spend it.
Salem Street — The Spine
N & S Salem Street, between W Chatham St and the railroad
This is the whole show, and it’s gloriously compact. Two blocks of late-1800s and early-1900s commercial buildings, most of them surviving a fire that tore through downtown in 1911 and got rebuilt in the brick you see now. Park once and you walk everything.
What makes Salem Street different from a manufactured “historic district” — the kind developers airlift into a new town center — is that nothing here is pretending. The bones are real. You’ll see ghost signs faded into the brick, transom windows over the doorways, and storefronts that have been a hardware store, then a five-and-dime, then whatever they are now, without ever being torn down. Walk the east side, cross at the depot, walk back the west side. That’s the loop, and it takes about ten minutes if you don’t stop. You will stop.
Parking: Free public lots sit behind the storefronts on both sides — look for the lot off N Salem near the depot and the one accessed from W Chatham. On-street spots fill up Saturday mornings. Come before noon if you want to park on the street itself.
Apex Union Depot — The Anchor
220 N Salem St
You can’t tell the story of this town without the depot, because the town is literally named for it: Apex sits at the highest point on the old Chatham Railroad line between Richmond and the coast — the apex of the grade. The current depot was built in 1914 after the earlier one burned, and it’s one of the few combination freight-and-passenger depots of its era still standing in the state.
It’s been restored and now serves as a community and event space rather than a working station, though active CSX freight still rolls through right alongside it, which is half the charm — you’re standing in a museum and a working rail corridor at the same time. Check whether the interior’s open before you go; hours are limited and it’s often booked for events. Even when it’s closed, the exterior and the trackside platform are the best photo in town, especially in late-afternoon light when the brick goes warm.
The Antique Stores — Plan to Lose an Hour
Apex’s downtown reputation rests heavily on antiques, and this is where the “lose a Saturday” math kicks in. Salem Street and the blocks just off it hold a cluster of multi-dealer antique malls and consignment shops — the kind where one storefront opens into room after room of booths, each run by a different vendor, so the inventory swings wildly from genuine period furniture to mid-century glassware to somebody’s grandmother’s costume jewelry.
The flagship here has long been a large multi-vendor antique mall on or just off Salem Street. Go in with no agenda. The fun is the dig, not the destination — you find the cast-iron skillet or the 1940s state-fair pennant you didn’t know you wanted. Bring cash; some individual booths still prefer it, and a few dealers will deal if you ask politely on a bigger-ticket item.
Tip: These stores keep shorter and more variable hours than restaurants — many don’t open until 10 or 11 and close by 5 or 6, and some shut entirely on Sunday or Monday. Antiquing is a late-morning-to-afternoon activity here, not an evening one. Verify hours for the specific shop you’re targeting before you drive out.
Where to Eat on Salem Street
The food scene downtown punches above what a two-block strip should be able to deliver. A few anchors:
Peak City Grill & Bar — 126 N Salem St. The downtown standby for a sit-down meal. Solid New American plates, a real bar, and a patio when the weather cooperates. This is your move for a proper lunch in the middle of an antiquing run, or a dinner that closes out the day.
Anna’s Pizzeria — Salem Street. New York-style slices and pies, the reliable casual option when you’ve got kids in tow or just don’t feel like a sit-down. Grab a slice, eat it on a bench near the depot, watch for a train.
Bombolo — Italian, well-regarded among locals for fresh pasta. If you want the nicer dinner end of the spectrum and it’s downtown-adjacent, this is the direction to look.
For coffee and a sit-down break between shops, there’s a local café presence on or near Salem Street. I’d rather flag this than send you to a place that closed.
A note on accuracy: downtown Apex’s restaurant roster turns over like any small downtown’s does, and I won’t pretend a specific menu item is still on the board when I can’t confirm it today. Use the names above as a starting map, not gospel — but the density is real. You will not go hungry on Salem Street.
The Honest Take
Apex downtown is small. That’s the point, and it’s also the catch. If you’re expecting a Durham-sized food-and-bar district or a full day of distinct attractions, you’ll burn through it and wonder what the fuss was. The right frame is this: Apex is a half-day, not a full day — pair it with something. Stack it with nearby Apex Nature Park or the American Tobacco Trail access points west of town if you want green space, or treat it as the charming front half of a day that ends in Cary or Holly Springs.
And come on a Saturday, on purpose. The antique stores keep their best hours then, the restaurants are open, the foot traffic gives the street life, and you’ll occasionally catch a downtown event — a farmers’ market, a PeakFest-style street festival, a holiday gathering. A dead Tuesday afternoon undersells the place; a Saturday shows you why people who could live anywhere in the Triangle chose this two-block stretch.
The slogan’s a little corny. The town isn’t. Go dig through the booths, eat on Salem Street, and stand by the depot when a freight train comes through. That’s the peak of good living, and it’s twenty minutes from downtown Raleigh.
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