It’s the driest watering gap in Brooklyn.
Mockingbird opened its doorways as the one booze-free cocktail bar within the borough throughout Dry January – and its house owners mentioned they’re turning crowds away on the door over a month later.
“We needed to flip individuals away on a drag bingo evening, and on Valentine’s Day we had been packed,” co-owner Coulton Vento informed The Submit of the Park Slope scorching spot that payments itself as a “zero-proof cocktail bar.”
“Our comfortable opening was insane – we had a line out the door,” the 30-year outdated Brooklyn Heights resident added.
Co-owner and Prospect Park resident Evan Clark, 28, mentioned programming is a big draw for the bar — and he plans to kickstart the town’s first “sober trivia evening” on Tuesdays
“So what we’re actually making an attempt to construct is that adult-centric lounge/cocktail bar space … someplace you possibly can spend just a few hours with buddies and never should order a meal,” he mentioned.
The longtime friends — each software program engineers by day — concocted their plan to open the booze-free libation station on Seventh Avenue after Vento stop ingesting in January 2024. It was then when he realized a noticeable lack of upscale no-alcohol venues within the Huge Apple, he mentioned.
“I like going to cocktail bars, however after I gave up ingesting, I wasn’t pleased with the choices,” Vento mentioned. “We began experimenting within the kitchen, we obtained actually into cocktail books and studying obscure Reddit threads.
“There’s not a variety of data on the market, you actually have to hunt it out,” Vento added.
The result’s a candlelit lounge with wall-to-wall cubicles, bar seating, grazing snack plates and drinks starting from $6 beers to $13 to fifteen cocktails.
Signature cocktails embrace the Hearth Toddy (Free Spirit Bourbon, lapsang souchong, kuromitsu, clove, anise and cinnamon), Physician’s Orders (Antidote Deep Purple aperitif, kemon, lime, raspberry, egg white, cream and membership soda) and Ember’s Delight (Ritual Rum, Giffard Aperitif, pineapple, lime, demerara, cinnamon and oak chip smoke).
Mockingbird has one of the intensive NA alternatives within the metropolis with greater than a dozen beers, wines and ciders, and options native distributors like Montauk, Momentum Brewing and Unique Sin,” its house owners mentioned.
“In the event you’re going to a very nice cocktail bar, it’s experiential, it’s one thing you’re not going to neglect,” Clark mentioned of the seasonal menu, which he crafts with Vento. “It’s one thing that goes past the flavour of the drink.”
Clark mentioned the bar’s crowd of regulars consists of long-sober people, native dad and mom and booze-averse Gen Zers.
“We wished to make that house for individuals of their mid-20s, early 30s, who’re sort of in that transitional interval of life, who’re like, ‘I don’t exit ingesting with my buddies. I need to do one thing else,” Clark mentioned.
“Nevertheless it’s been a really broad vary [of patrons],” he added, “and I feel that’s nice as a result of individuals aren’t associating it with, ‘I’ve to be sober to be right here.’”
The NA bar’s grand opening comes as a number of beloved Brooklyn taverns are shutting down or at threat of closing on account of hovering prices and even fewer prospects — however Vento argues that, whereas some bars are discovering it tougher to get patrons to spend on liquor, Mockingbird solutions with a special name.
“There’s lots of people on the market who, after COVID for a majority of causes, simply needed to significantly reduce on their ingesting,” he mentioned. “We’re seeing individuals are available in who’re making an attempt to actually cut back their consumption and alter their relationship with alcohol.
“It’s the identical [challenge] as conventional bars the place you’re making an attempt to get your identify on the market – coping with gross sales and making income,” Vento added.
“However I feel on this case, what units us aside is we’re providing an choice to individuals who in any other case don’t have an choice.”
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