Before he hit the end of that sentence, I thought torch was going to turn out to mean a lighter. :(

Just wait until the 30s when you start feeling the hangover effects BEFORE you go to bed.

It’s that robot in Interstellar.

Covid isolation created a bunch of alcoholics and subsequently a bunch of recovering addicts. This gave rise to a desire for alcohol-free replacements.

My wife is 1 year sober, herself. She often struggles at restaurants because she wants something “refreshing” to drink. Most of the time, this leaves her with lemonade or soda. Neither of which is very exciting.

The demand is there and these bars are popping up to meet that demand. Long term, I think these business fail. We’ll see more and more mocktails sold at grocery stores and people will be able to find something they want without having to go to a bar and pay more for the same thing they can find at a grocery store. The ones that succeed will be in small pockets where the number of people who are sober AND want a place to congregate and meet people is very high.