A glowing red “SKEMA” sign hangs above the bar at Red Line, casting light over the students inside.
On a strip that has steadily lost its bar scene, the small wine and beer shop turned taproom has grown into an unofficial clubhouse for NC State’s international students, especially those from SKEMA Business School.
Owner Alex Selwaeh said that shift was no accident. After the COVID-19 pandemic hollowed out his customer base, he rebuilt Red Line around the people who kept walking through the door.
“The students are the ones who control everything in the area — energy, community — and we noticed that from that time the need to focus more on the bar because State opened back up and we used to have international students a lot pre-pandemic time,” Selwaeh said. “Professors would come, and we lost all that community during the pandemic because everybody was gone. And then we had to build our clientele back, almost starting from January 2023, and that’s when we started our connections back with the international students.”
Selwaeh, a two-time NC State alum who immigrated from Lebanon and has French family roots, said the connection with SKEMA’s French students felt natural, and they built the foundation for his clientele.
“I truly think it’s just a common cultural background and the laid back vibe that they come here,” Selwaeh said. “They feel respected and they feel like everyone else. I mean, it’s not only about the NC and the international [students], but as I said, they were the gateway to open to the community, the NC State students.”
By word of mouth, that connection has now spread beyond Raleigh.
For SKEMA student Mathis Verneau, a master’s student studying international business, Red Line’s reputation was already set before he landed in North Carolina.
“The students who stay for longer at SKEMA say, ‘There is a huge bar, it’s the SKEMA bar where you can meet some French [people],” Verneau said. “And you just say, ‘let’s go to the Red Line because it’s the SKEMA bar.’”
Verneau said he visited Red Line his first week in Raleigh as weekly SKEMA nights turned the bar into a kind of home base.
“During my first week here, I said ‘Let’s go to see that’ and it became the new place where we do some parties every Thursday,” Verneau said. “It’s like our beer. The second one, the Raleigh Yes Ma’am, we call that the SKEMA beer. And we say, okay, I just want the SKEMA beer, Alex. The relationship between SKEMA and Red Line. I don’t know how many times, but when I came in January 2025, this was the SKEMA bar.”
On the tap list, the “SKEMA beer” is the second option. For SKEMA students, it is also a signal that their presence matters, especially due to the discount received upon asking for the drink under its secret name.
“It’s a strong beer,” Verneau said. “It’s a 9-degree and for a cheap price.”
Verneau said Red Line stands out because it lets students shape the space, which matters for a cohort that often spends only one or two semesters in the United States.
“We don’t really have that place where we can do something like have some French music, something like that, and we know that with Alex, we can if we want,” Verneau said. “If there was some lot of French people during Thursday night [hangouts who] want to put some French music, Alex says, ‘Okay, just take the Spotify and put some music,’ and we can have our French music.”
Red Line’s role stretches beyond SKEMA nights into club sports, especially with the men’s rugby team, which now fields a roster packed with international players. Sean McCallen, a fourth-year studying political science and a longtime member of the team, said the team currently has a majority of SKEMA students.
Rugby is a natural bridge. Verneau said the sport is one of France’s biggest, only after soccer.
McCallen said that the mix of French and American players can feel intimidating at first for students still finding their footing in English, but it has turned into its own bilingual culture.
“We have like 20 guys on the team that are French-speaking,” McCallen said. “A lot of us have picked up French as well. Just directional French, like in-game, so we can say, like, how to say pass and stuff, like little things. But it’s funny, I’ve learned more French than they probably have learned English [here].”
McCallen said many of those relationships deepen at Red Line, where the team goes to watch matches, celebrate wins and bring new players into the fold. He said Selwaeh’s openness to the club has turned into direct support, as Red Line has sponsored new jerseys for the rugby team, complete with a logo across the front.
The relationship runs both ways. On Mondays, the bar hosts paint-and-sip nights where under-21 students can drink mocktails alongside older friends, and on Tuesdays, the bar hosts run clubs and trivia. Selwaeh said most of Red Line’s weekly fixtures started as student ideas that then stuck around because people kept showing up.
“With that being said, each activity brings its own crowd, builds the connection with the business, with the bartenders, creates that family around the business,” Selwaeh said. “And you will find new opportunities coming in from new members. At some point, we had a book club. But of course, things like these go and come based on the members that can keep flourishing the idea and keep it growing.”
