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The Tale of Mocktail

All vibes, no buzz… Sans alcohol bars are popping up everywhere. The newer generations aren’t into dranks as much as the older folks. They prefer alternative options over the 2am turn up.

With alternative on alcoholic options now much better then O’Douls, the ability to have a bar like atmosphere without any alcohol has finally arrived.

These are popping up everywhere. You can even use the Sober Bar Finder, to find one near you. One of the well known ones in Austin, Sans Bar, has been a huge success. Absence of Proof is another winner, doing pop-up style sober bars across the US.

(P.S. Sober Bar finder also has a spectacular Mocktail Recipe Book you should check out)

This trend makes sense:

• Wider audience: People like to be social, but not everyone drinks. Having a sober bar works for sober people (duh), but also pregnant (still in moderation), religious and folks in recovery.

• Dating woes: Swiping right can take a swipe at your liver. With some people going on multiple dates, having a social atmosphere alternative to alcoholic bars is a wonderful change of pace for our mingling singles.

• Alternatives: Sometimes we need to switch it up. The night scene can be unhealthy and let’s face it, the waistline starts to expand as we throw back the cocktails

Chug, chug, ching… Even large companies are taking notice. Heineken 0.0 is unavoidable in advertising all around you (and is quite good). Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) has committed to making 20% of beer sales to no- or low-alcohol by 2025.

The End Goal

The ideal product would be a sober bar… Just like one you would find on Sober Bar Finder. They’re awesome, just input your city and you’ll find untapped bars likely right in your neck of the woods.

Tie it in with in person and an online non-alcoholic marketplace, you’ll have yourself multiple revenue streams.

This could make money through:

• Bar sales

• Online drink sales

• In-person drink sales

The MVP

The pop-up… I’ve built this out and planned to launch one myself. The MVP is a pop-up sober bar series across Seattle.

The idea was BEAUTIFUL. It was called Mockery Bar.

Here’s how it worked:

1. Rent out cafe’s in the evening (during their off hours)

2. Host two 2 hour mocktail pop-ups (taken from Nick Gray’s 2 Hour Cocktail party)

3. Sell tickets with a drink included, with the option to purchase more while you’re there

4. Collect emails from customers and blast them every time we did a pop-up

5. Do in-person and online surveys of what drinks they wanted

6. By the time we have 100k emails and brand recognition, open and brick & mortar sober bar and have a blow out grand opening 🚀 

Scaling Up

No buzzkill… After you have your brick and mortar sober bar running, I would start testing cities by doing pop-ups. (Similar to Absence of Proof)

Start beverage distribution with online and in-person sales. Collect emails and categorize them by city.

When you host pop-ups, blast those emails and do some light advertising with neighboring businesses and social clubs.

Once you see cities with high demand, start planning to open another physical location. Rinse and repeat.

Viability:

1 [building spaceships] 🚀 to 5 [easy peasy] 😊 

This is very very do-able. I’ve tested this one myself and there is high demand. The main issue are the margins. RAZOR THIN. After running the numbers, the business pays for itself but not much more after that.

The hard part is finding a venue that wont charge you an arm and a leg. That’s why I recommend using closed coffee shops. They love the extra evening cash (while they’re closed) and are already set up in central locations.

As usual each business will have it’s own setbacks, and it’s all about the execution and consistency rather than just having the idea 😉 

It’s a great day to be great!

Love, Mike

 👋