Bars without booze?

Matthew Hawes, the owner of a new drinking establishment in Sebastopol, Calif., was lining up an assortment of wine bottles and cans on a makeshift tasting table on a recent weekday afternoon when a passerby cupped her hands and peered into the large glass garage door. The woman, wearing a knitted cap and sweater, shook the locked the entry door.

“We’re not open yet,” Hawes said kindly, although he still let her in.

“What’s going to be in here … an ice cream joint?” inquired Fay, a 75-year-old local who declined to provide her last name.

Hawes explained that his shop, Better Sunday, was not an ice cream parlor but “a nonalcoholic bar … we focus on cocktail alternatives for those who want to drink a little bit less in their lives.” The bar’s name implies a new start, he added. That day, Hawes was preparing for the March grand opening of the bar’s second location in the heart of the wine country in an open-air, industrial-style dining and shopping hub. The first location opened in San Francisco last year.

Fay scanned the sunlit room—a pallet of drinks, a velvet green couch, worn-in burnt orange banquettes, and a bar top from a 1950s bowling alley. “Very cute!” she said.

That’s not exactly the reaction Hawes hopes to hear from the sober-­curious, self-optimizing millennial clientele he expects to attract. But the 41-year-old entrepreneur and self-­described cannabis advocate doesn’t skip a beat: “So tell me, Fay, do you drink?”

Entrepreneurs like Hawes are increasingly tapping into a growing market for nonalcoholic drinks and spaces as more people cut back on alcohol—or ditch it altogether. An emphasis on personal wellness and bleak messaging from public health officials over the potential problems of even moderate drinking are fueling a shift in cultural attitudes toward alcohol. Sober bars and shops are popping up in major U.S. cities to fill the void. While eschewing alcohol, in some cases their eclectic drink menus offer psychoactive and other alternative medicinal ingredients.

For nearly three decades, federal dietary guidelines have maintained that moderate drinking is safe. But in January, outgoing U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recommended cancer warning labels on all alcohol. Murthy’s 22-page report cited a link between alcohol consumption and risk for at least seven kinds of cancer.

But when it comes to moderate drinking, many say the science is not settled. Weeks before Murthy’s report, research from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that men who consumed two drinks a day and women who consumed one drink a day had lower all-cause mortality rates than people who never consumed alcohol. The departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services are set to update their alcohol recommendations this year.

The day after Murthy’s announcement, Joshua James, 42, owner of Ocean Beach Cafe, San Francisco’s first non­alcoholic bar, saw record sales.

We talked on the phone as he took an Uber to the airport for a trip to New York City, where he joined TV personality Carl Radke for his launch of Soft Bar + Café, a nonalcoholic bar and café in Brooklyn. From there, James attended the Mindful Drinking Fest in Washington, D.C., where he participated in a panel titled “A Better Buzz: Drinks That Pep Us Up, Calm Us Down, and Offer a Healthy Alternative to Alcohol.”

While wine and beer sales have declined post-pandemic, the market for nonalcoholic drinks jumped 31% in 2023, according to NielsenIQ. Between 2021 and 2023, only 62% of young adults ages 18 to 34 said they were alcohol drinkers, down from 72% two decades ago, according to Gallup.

“It’s been the way we socialize and get together and connect … alcohol was the default, and that’s what’s shifting,” James told me. Now, he says, “everybody knows someone who is either not ­drinking or is cutting back.”

James said nonalcoholic drinks started to gain a “cool” factor around six years ago, when major alcohol companies including Heineken, Molson Coors, and Anheuser-Busch InBev began rolling out zero-alcohol drinks. Craft breweries, such as Athletic Brewing and Lagunitas, have followed suit.

A former bartender, James committed to a year of sobriety in 2019 after alcohol abuse led to two-day hangovers and lost job opportunities. Two years later, during “Dry January,” he opened Ocean Beach Cafe. Its proximity to iconic San Francisco attractions—Golden Gate Park, the zoo, and a popular beach—brings plenty of tourist foot traffic. Customers who come for coffee and sandwiches are introduced to a curated list of nonalcoholic drinks, but not the typical mocktails, what James dismisses as “a kids drink with a bunch of sugar and a juice base.”

On the menu, “Non Alc Cocktails,” “Hemptails,” and “Free Spirit Elixir Cocktails” range from $16 to $18. Nonalcoholic wines are sold by the glass. The menu’s hemptail drinks aren’t completely sober: They contain low doses of THC, the psychoactive ingredient found in cannabis, while other cocktails contain adaptogens—herbs, plants, and mushrooms said to counteract anxiety and stress.

Consumers should do their homework before trying alternative drinks. Some ingredients could pose health risks, especially to pregnant women.

James noted that alternative medicine and herbalism play a significant role in the nonalcoholic drink craze.

“It may not be for everybody, especially because there’s a massive education component for every individual active ingredient,” he said.

Back in Sebastopol, Matthew Hawes seeks to win over Fay with drink samples. She loves the concept of the bar and believes “more people should stay off alcohol.” But she pressed Hawes as to how he will attract a crowd: “What’s going to be the theme here? You going to have a big screen with football and nonalcoholic drinks?”

When Hawes told her some drinks include ingredients offering “alternative buzz,” she perked up. “If you drink the whole can, you’re going to feel like you’re in a warm bath,” he told her. The psychoactive ingredients in some of his drinks include kava root and Egyptian blue lotus.

Fay’s first sample was a San Francisco–based “mushroom-infused” nonalcoholic beverage. Among its ingredients: lemon juice, reishi, juniper berry, citrus peel, prickly ash, and licorice root.

She was sold and left with a $42 bottle, telling Hawes she’ll be back: “You’ve got a customer.”