Common mistakes and questions to ask
A few things people get wrong when they look for alcohol-free venues: assuming a venue serves no alcohol, trusting hours without checking, and forgetting the bottle shop option.
Updated
Mistake: thinking a bar with mocktails is an alcohol-free venue. A bar may carry a mocktail next to a full cocktail menu. That does not make it alcohol-free. This site lists only venues that serve no alcohol at all. Each venue is checked against its own published pages or its OpenStreetMap tags before it is listed. The venue type on each listing tells you what kind of place it is.
Mistake: trusting the hours without checking. The opening hours on a listing come from the venue's own site or from OpenStreetMap. We read them on the date we added the listing. Hours change, and holiday hours change more. Small venues may change their schedule on short notice. For example, Raven Records in London lists different hours on some days and is closed on Tuesday. Check the venue's own website, or call, before you go. Some listings show no hours at all.
Mistake: looking only at bars. Many people search for alcohol-free bars and forget bottle shops. A non-alcoholic bottle shop sells alcohol-free beer, wine and spirits to take away. This helps when you want drinks for a gathering at home. The non-alcoholic bottle shops category lists the shops on this site. Some also hold tastings. DRYKKIR in Munich says it offers tastings and a lounge, and sells only alcohol-free products.
Mistake: assuming prices are the same everywhere. Drink prices differ by city and venue. No listing on this site shows a price per drink yet. The zero-proof night out cost tool lets you enter your own prices and compare a cocktail night with an alcohol-free night. It estimates drinks only. It leaves out food and cover charges.
Mistake: assuming every field is filled in. A listing shows the facts we found. Some have no phone number, hours or street coordinates. A blank field means we did not find the fact. It does not mean the venue lacks it. The venue's own site is the best place to look.
Questions to ask a venue before you go. Check the venue's site or call. Ask what hours it is open today. Ask whether it serves food. Ask what a zero-proof drink costs. Ask whether it takes reservations or tickets. The listing may answer some of these. Confirm the answers with the venue.
Questions for a venue owner. If you run an alcohol-free venue, you can claim or suggest a listing. Check the venue type, whether you serve food, how many zero-proof drinks are on the menu, the price per drink and your regular hours. Each of these fields makes the listing more complete.
This site is a directory of venues, not a recovery resource. A listing is a record, not an endorsement.