Alpaca has been a staple in the Fayetteville restaurant scene since 2020, serving up authentic Peruvian cuisine. 

“Our staple is our Peruvian charcoal chicken…Everything’s marinated overnight for 24 hours, and it’s cooked over live charcoal, so the customer gets a completely different flavor than your typical chicken spot. And you get a nice golden color on the outside, very juicy on the inside, and we pair that with some of our homemade sauces, yellow sauce, and our green sauce, which is probably our biggest fan favorite,” shared Fabian Llamas, owner and operator of Alpaca Peruvian Charcoal Chicken in Fayetteville. 

Other popular menu items include the arroz chaufa, lomo saltado and jerk chicken. Another major part of the business is catering. Alpaca offers box lunches, party trays and buffet-style setups for meetings, celebrations and weddings, tailoring service to each event.

Llamas originally opened the restaurant under the name “Fabe’s,” but then rebranded to Alpaca in 2023. Llamas’ brother-in-law opened the first location in Durham almost 20 years ago. Alpaca now has 19 locations across the state. 

“The goal is to continue to grow, and also while staying true to kind of what got us here in the first place, which is the quality, the strong culture that we have, and obviously our great people. So we want to continue to build strong teams; we want to continue to improve operations, and hopefully bring the concept to more communities across North Carolina,” added Llamas. 

A Fayetteville resident since age seven, Llamas credits the local community and loyal customers with the restaurant’s success. 

“Fayetteville has been great to me…the community and the welcoming customers have been exceptional,” remarked Llamas.