Nothing about the all-day salon/coffee shop/cocktail bar/museum the Interval at Fort Mason is normal, including their huge drink menu that includes 12 low- and no-ABV cocktails — six of each. While most of the alcohol-free options are approachable mixtures like Orgeat Lemonade and Cherry Soda, you’ll probably want to try the Bitter Orange Old Fashioned made with Chinotto and bitters for a gratifying but not-so-saucy refreshment.

An Instagram thirst trap for your actual thirst, Palette Tea House offers up brightly colored cocktails from White Cap’s Carlos Yturria in a Ghirardelli Square restaurant from the team behind Dragon Beaux and Koi Palace. The “Designated Drivers” section of non-alcoholic cocktails has both a kid-friendly passion fruit puree and lemonade slushy and an adults-only soda with lemon and blackberry-coffee shrub.

Vegan (sorry, plant-based) restaurant Wildseed opened in September 2019 with aquafaba (chickpea water) instead of egg whites, kombucha on draft, charcoal lemonade, and several non-alcoholic cocktails on offer. Shrub (vinegar-based preserves) sodas change seasonally, and listed cocktails include passionfruit mixed with coconut water, beets and black pepper with tonic, and a ginger-lemon drink to fortify your immune system if you believe in that sort of thing. Even if you don’t, the sunshine through Wildseed’s wall of windows is a great attitude booster.

Disclosure: Carolyn Alburger, Cities Director for Eater, is married to chef Blair Warsham. She has recused herself from involvement in any coverage of Warsham’s projects.

One does not simply walk into an oyster bar expecting to find non-alcoholic cocktails of any sort, but Leo’s serves up six options. Most are soda-based with flavor combos like jalapeño and celery or strawberry and mint, but there’s also the Juice Box with pineapple, orange, orgeat, and lemon. Shall we call it a Dry-Tai?

Tropical and tiki bars should do a much better job of offering non-alcoholic cocktails given the ease with which strongly-flavored island ingredients like cream of coconut, passion fruit, and guava juice can be used in spirit-free drinks. At least Trailblazer has put some of these options on the menu, with above-mentioned flavors plus papaya, hibiscus, pineapple, and various teas to provide a tannic backbone to the drinks. Perhaps this is due to the restaurant’s location within one of the Salesforce buildings: They need to provide some liquor-free options for the workers taking the elevator back to the office upstairs.

An ambitious project from the Kin Khao team set inside Japantown’s Hotel Kabuki, Nari offers a sizable cocktail menu at its bar and lounge that matches the scale of the venue. In addition to an extremely on-trend low-ABV cocktail section, bar manager Megan Hoang has put five “zero-proof” cocktails on the opening menu. “I was going to do one or two non-alcoholic cocktails and I got a little carried away,” she says. The drinks all include “distilled non-alcoholic spirit” Seedlip, but Hoang infuses it with juniper for some drinks and adds pineapple sherbet, acid phosphate, and vanilla syrup to others.

The mocktail section of South Beach “progressive Indian” restaurant Rooh’s menu lists three or four different savory highballs at any given time, with flavors like rose, tamarind, and pomegranate (or, on a previous menu, fenugreek, peppercorn, and curry leaf). These fresh ingredients are lengthened with soda water, ginger beer, or tonic, and brightened with lime or other citrus. There’s a strong tendency to garnish with edible flowers at this joint, so chances are the drinks will look as good as your lack of a hangover feels. ( Rooh also has a new Palo Alto location, where they’re tossing fruit in the smoker to use in drinks.)

The mocktail section of August (1) Five’s drink menu stands apart. Not only are there a generous five alcohol-free options (compared to the list of thirteen standard cocktails), a few of them are reworked versions of the booze-based ones. The French Connection includes the same verjus and herbs de provence of the JRD Tata, but leaves out the gin and crème de violette; and the Spicy Gold has the turmeric, ginger, black pepper, and citrus of the Holi Cow minus the Chartreuse and vermouth. Don’t wait until your next Civic Center cultural experience to check out the drinks here; let cocktails like the Funky Bunny (carrot juice, mustard, and honey) be the lure.

Have some soda, jerks! The Ice Cream Bar serves from its 1930s Michigan-imported soda fountainnon-alcoholic sodas, floats, and malts as well as beer/wine-based “remedies.”  The lunch counter up front is popular with neighborhood kids but smart adults know the rare bar mixes drinks with flavors like candy cap mushroom, sarsaparilla, and licorice tincture  all made buoyant with a blast from the heavily-carbonated water flowing through the specialty taps. For an all-liquor-free experience, check the Castro Fountain by the same owner.

Chase Center neighbor (AdChasent?) School Night, located in the event space the Pearl, is open for weeknight cocktailing of the alcoholic variety and non-, with three “Junior Varsity” options on the list. The drinks match the Peruvian-Latin style of the rest of the cocktail menu by Enrique Sanchez. One is kinda-sorta like a raspberry Paloma; another a pineapple Pisco Sour minus the pisco; the third a tempting combo of chicha morada, passion fruit, and tonic.

While Trick Dog is world famous for its creative cocktail menus that launch every six months (the first half of 2020 menu is a fake university recruitment brochure), this bar deserves a huge amount of credit for how gosh-darn good they are at offering non-alcoholic cocktails (and great allergy labeling but that’s a different story).  Always on offer are two non-alcoholic beers, and both a still and sparkling non-alcoholic wine. The new menu adds cocktails made with alcohol-free versions of vermouth, sherry, Campari, and orange liqueur —alcohol-forward cocktails without the alcohol, instead of the fruit juice and soda mixtures found in most places. Note that the Bon Vivants team’s other bar, Bon Voyage, also does a terrific job with alcohol-free drinks.