Listen Brooklyn
Night club · Williamsburg ·
Music-focused alcohol-free bar with craft cocktails
Music-focused alcohol-free bar with craft cocktails
"A Brooklyn alcohol-free bar founded by Lorelei Bandrovschi that treats nonalcoholic cocktails as their own creative category rather than attempts to replicate classic boozy drinks. The program mixes distilled nonalcoholic spirits (Seedlip’s herbaceous Garden 108 is recommended with tonic or ginger ale), adaptogen- and nootropic-forward blends (Kin Euphorics Dream Light for a nightcap blended with oat milk), and unexpected mixers like yerba-maté sodas and aloe-vera juice to add viscosity, bitterness, or a caffeine lift. The approach emphasizes experimentation with spirits, shrubs, syrups, juices, and bitters to craft balanced, sophisticated booze-free cocktails." - Dominique Pariso
"Listen Bar is a pop-up party catering to people who prefer to party without alcohol." - Stefanie Tuder
"Listen Bar founder Lorelei Bandrovschi, who hosted a series of alcohol-free pop-ups at East Village bar Von, is plotting a permanent space somewhere in the city and is now raising money via an online crowdfunding campaign on ifundwomen.com." - Carla Vianna
"Positioned in Williamsburg with a curated, ‘alternative’ adult atmosphere, this music-forward spot pairs a craft, spirit-free cocktail program with live sets from bartender-musicians. Menu development tapped a high-profile mixologist with Michelin-level experience to create playful, themed drinks like “What’s Ur Rising Sign” (inspired by Mitski) and “Me, A Houseplant” (lemon, elderflower, cucumber). The concept emphasizes sophisticated, health-minded ingredients (matcha, turmeric, bee pollen, natural sugars, and no canned soda mixers), price points comparable to cocktail bars (roughly $10–$13 for mixed creations; under $10 for unmixed options like Club Mate or kombucha), and an adults-only vibe in many cases to preserve a bar-like social environment. The founder deliberately avoids labeling the space ‘sober,’ aiming instead to attract both regular drinkers and those seeking a crafted, social alternative." - Emma Orlow
"If you avoid the view through the front windows—of a low, graffiti-covered building, parked cars, and scraggly power lines—it's easy to imagine Chicha, a new Nicaraguan restaurant in Bushwick, in a high-end hotel, with a pool, or even the ocean just out of frame. The clientele looked like background actors hired for atmosphere—multiple men in floral-print short-sleeved shirts, multiple women in straw hats—and the decor leans fully into a glossy editorial vibe, with beachy pale-pink tabletops and pineapple- and palm-tree-printed cushions along a slatted-wood banquette; the restaurant's website even commands “GRAM-IT DAMNIT.” Opened by a Nicaraguan-American and her husband (whose previous venture was a grilled-cheese shop), Chicha bills itself as New York's only restaurant devoted to Nicaraguan cuisine, and although the menu includes a note—“We know these aren't familiar dishes. Let us answer your questions or recommend our favorites!”—that feels largely unnecessary because the food is plated and described to feel familiar, even using creative-agency copy like “Face it, plants taste good, too. These are the greens you deserve.” On the plate, arroz con pollo arrives as Italian arancini, a clever, successful mashup that amplifies the crisp-edged texture; the churrasco is a seared skirt steak, nearly as silky as roasted eggplant, served with a nest of shoestring yucca fries and a zesty blended jalapeño sauce; and a baked half chicken, crusted to evoke a type of Nicaraguan pastry, is pretty much indistinguishable from standard oven-fried chicken. What comes out of the kitchen is mostly delicious, and I found the bar especially great, with an encyclopedic selection of rum and a handful of cocktails on draft, including a rum and house-made kola-nut soda—but on the whole Chicha feels oddly frictionless and unsurprising, like an advertisement enticing tourists to an all-inclusive luxury resort; it's unfair to expect one restaurant to represent an entire country's cuisine, and someone will just have to open another." - Hannah Goldfield
