Jeff Gustin was practically raised in neighborhood bars. Faux leather bar stools, sticky surfaces abound, stale cigarette smoke dancing in the air—it’s a common Wisconsin story. So when he opened the nonalcoholic bar Inmoxicated in downtown Racine in 2021, he was hoping to give some folks an alternative.
“One lady, an elderly lady that came in, I served her a glass of N/A wine… and she’s in tears,” says Gustin. “I’m like, is everything OK? And she looked up and, through teary eyes, [she] said, ‘I never thought I would taste red wine again.’”
He later found out it was her nightly routine before she stopped drinking.
Gustin knows about sobriety. He worked with people struggling with substance use disorder for years, including his wife, Shannon Goodman, who used to dream of a place like Inmoxicated.
“It was a passion of hers that became a passion of mine to help her and other people enjoy a nightlife without having the temptation to drink, without having to deal with drunk people,” Gustin says.
But even with a dedicated following, the bar closed its doors last July due to a lack of business. They’ve since shifted their attention to events and pop-ups with their N/A trailer.
“We learned so much, we met so many amazing people, we’ve heard so many stories of personal stories and triumphs that I wouldn’t trade back for the world,” says Gustin.
While Inmoxicated might have been the state’s first fully N/A bar when it opened in 2021, it wasn’t the last.
The Counter Dry Bar opened in February 2023 at Crossroads Collective, the business incubator on Milwaukee’s east side. The elevated mocktails highlighted N/A spirit-based drinks, which was new for the city.
“There are nights that I don’t feel like drinking, maybe I have a meeting the next day,” says Ryan Castelaz, The Counter Dry Bar co-founder. “So for The Counter, we really wanted to serve people who’ve chosen sobriety for a lifetime as well as people who have chosen sobriety for a round or an evening.”
Before opening The Counter, Castelaz co-founded and opened Discourse Coffee in Milwaukee. While Discourse was thriving at the beginning of 2023, The Counter was struggling to land with customers. Six months later, the bar closed.
Both Castelaz and Gustin echoed the same thing: the hardest challenge in opening a dry bar isn’t convincing sober customers to visit—it’s getting those customers to bring their friends who aren’t sober. Gustin says when groups with mixed preferences visited Inmoxicated, the alcohol-drinking friends would always sneak out to the traditional corner pub and then come back.
According to a 2022 study, younger people are drinking less and going out less. For Castelaz, he says he sees that shift happening, and even if it’s hard now for N/A bars to catch on, change is coming.
“I think it is a huge part of the drinking culture of the next 10 years—people making more conscious decisions about alcohol,” Castelaz says.
N/A communities
Leia Ferrari Traner had her last drink at Christmas in 2019, the same year she had the idea to start the social group Sober in the Brew City.
“Sober in the Brew City is for specifically supporting women and nonbinary folks who are curious about trying out sobriety in social settings,” Ferrari Traner says.
The idea was to find places like Inmoxicated and The Counter, visit them with a group of nondrinkers on a monthly basis, and make their own kind of happy hour—without alcohol, of course.
She says a few things have helped sustain a sober lifestyle after moving to Milwaukee. One is the community of support and accountability she’s created. Another is having a partner who identifies as an alcoholic and has been sober for years. And there are always those triggering memories of binge drinking.
“Probably in my mid-20s, I had my first two-day hangover, and it was then when I was like, the benefits of drinking are [outweighed by] the drawbacks, and the fact that I would lose a whole day of my precious weekend,” she says.
Ferrari Traner says community is needed since it can feel isolating if you want to socialize without drinking.
Byron Thompson has been doing just that for the past 24 years in Milwaukee. He says he needed it when he started his journey into long-term recovery. Instead of bars, Thompson found his people on the basketball court—that’s where he started his sober space, Rebound, in 2008.
By 2020, he was in contact with a national organization called The Phoenix, which holds social events in different cities across the U.S. to support people in recovery. Early on, Thompson was the only presence The Phoenix had in Milwaukee. Today, he estimates they’ve served 8,000 to 10,000 people in Milwaukee and the surrounding area.
Thompson says that early in recovery, it was tough to find spaces to socialize after AA meetings. That took a toll.
“What am I doing Friday night?” asks Thompson. “I'd rather go to an adult venue because if I have to go to another spaghetti dinner in a church basement, [it’s over].”
That lack of options is what he’s looking to fill for people who choose to live sober. But he says he’s learned from not having spaces to go, and that’s the community he’s created.
“When you come out of that basement from 12 steps, what are you gonna do Friday night?” Thompson says. “What are you gonna do Saturday night? Or Tuesday night? You come with us, and you’re with like-minded people, we’re having fun, we’re going to the game, and you’re not alone.”
Thompson says the group enjoys going out after events, like Bucks games. But it’s still hard to find places that cater to N/A drinkers. That’s something he’d like to see change.
“When we go out as a group, we always laugh when they give us a wine list,” says Thompson. “But when you get to the back of the menu, and they have a little N/A section, that’s so cool to us. But as far as actual [completely N/A] places, if I want to go out later at night after dinner, it would be great to have options.”
What's the future for N/A bars in Wisconsin?
So what’s the answer to keeping these N/A bars open? Jeff Gustin and Inmoxicated pivoted to the trailer idea. So did Ryan Castelaz and his team when they opened Agency.
The bar opened last summer and is a James Beard national semifinalist for best new bar. As the nation's first hybrid cocktail bar, you can order any drink on the menu with or without alcohol.
The bar is located inside the Dubbel Dutch hotel in downtown Milwaukee and can comfortably fit a few dozen people. There’s a deep, extravagant back bar filled with N/A spirits, vintage glassware, and a bounty of homemade tinctures.
“It’s all about bringing drinkers and nondrinkers together,” Castelaz says. “Because [their friends] get to go to one of the city’s best cocktail lounges. And they get to go to a nonalcoholic cocktail lounge. And it’s the same place, and the same menu, and the same bartenders, and the same vibe, and the same table.”
And on a random Wednesday night, that’s just who was in the bar. Morgan had just finished her first N/A drink, while her friend Tess had one with alcohol. They approached the bar, each ordering an N/A drink for their next round.
“It’s Wednesday at 5 p.m., we’re taking it easy,” Tess says.
“There are a lot of places where when you ask for N/A drinks, it’s something they don’t think about very often, and you very much feel that way when you’re ordering,” Morgan says.
Tess says she loves what’s happening at Agency and echoes what Jeff Gustin and Ryan Castelaz say—she wants to see more N/A third spaces.
“There’s so much pressure to participate in it, and if you want to go out, you feel like you have to. Giving people that space to find their community that’s not based around alcohol makes it more accepting for people who maybe do want to be sober or gives that option for people who may not have tried it before,” Tess says.
And while the people here are saying that and asking for that, if you ask the pros, like Jeff Gustin, there’s doubt that Milwaukee—and Wisconsin—will ever be ready.
“I don’t know that Wisconsin, I hate to say, will ever be ready for a sober experience… [but] some people need the sober space,” Gustin says.
