By: Ellen Cans

In January, Brooklyn got its first booze-free bar. The Zero Proof Cocktail bar, named Mockingbird, has quickly become a hotspot, even turning away crowds, as per the NY Post. The booze-free cocktail bar opened up at 213 7th Ave, in Park Slope. “We had to turn people away on a drag bingo night, and on Valentine’s Day we were packed,” co-owner Coulton Vento told The Post. “Our soft opening was insane – we had a line out the door,” said the 30-year old Brooklyn Heights resident. Co-owner Evan Clark, 28 who lives in Prospect Park, said the planned programs are a successful lure for the bar. He said they have plans to kickstart the city’s first “sober trivia night” on Tuesdays.

The owners are longtime friends, with both working as software engineers by day. The Post reported, together they devised their plan to open the booze-free watering hole, after Vento quit drinking in January 2024. That was then when he had noticed the dire lack of upscale non-alcohol venues in New York City, he said. “I love going to cocktail bars, but when I gave up drinking, I wasn’t happy with the options,” Vento said. “We started experimenting in the kitchen, we got really into cocktail books and reading obscure Reddit threads.”

Per the Post, Mockingbird has one of the most extensive non-alcoholic selections in the Big Apple, with over a dozen beers, wines and ciders, and features local vendors like Montauk, Momentum Brewing and Original Sin, its owners said. It also has a selection of Signature cocktails like: the Fireside Toddy (Free Spirit Bourbon, lapsang souchong, kuromitsu, clove, anise and cinnamon), Doctor’s Orders (Antidote Deep Red aperitif, kemon, lime, raspberry, egg white, cream and club soda) and Ember’s Delight (Ritual Rum, Giffard Aperitif, pineapple, lime, demerara, cinnamon and oak chip smoke).

“If you’re going to a really nice cocktail bar, it’s experiential, it’s something you’re not going to forget,” Clark said of the seasonal menu, which he crafts with Vento. “It’s something that goes beyond the flavor of the drink.”

As for the ambiance, the lounge is candlelit with wall-to-wall booths, bar seating, and offers grazing snack plates. Prices range from $6 beers to $13 to $15 for cocktails. Clark told the Post, the bar’s regular crowd consists of long-sober folks, like local parents and Gen Zers who don’t want booze. “We wanted to make that space for people in their mid-20s, early 30s, who are kind of in that transitional period of life, who are like, ‘I don’t go out drinking with my friends.

“ I want to do something else,” Clark said. “But it’s been a very broad range [of patrons],” he added, “and I think that’s great because people aren’t associating it with, ‘I have to be sober to be here.’”

While Brooklyn’s old-time taverns have been facing climbing costs and risk of closures, Mockingbird has even had to turn patrons away at times. Vento says the borough just needed a non-alcoholic venue. “There’s a lot of people out there who, after COVID for a majority of reasons, just had to seriously cut back on their drinking,” Vento said. “We’re seeing people come in who are trying to really reduce their consumption and change their relationship with alcohol. It’s the same [challenge] as traditional bars where you’re trying to get your name out there – dealing with sales and making revenue,” he added.