Verbena Free Spirited, the non-alcoholic cafe and dry bar that turned a storefront in Cleveland's Hingetown neighborhood into a hub for mocktails and mindful drinking, will close at the end of September after three years in business. The shop at 1434 W. 29th St. will hold its last full day of service on Sept. 26, followed by a goodbye party the next day where owner Molly Cheraso will serve drinks and sell off remaining products.
Cheraso opened Verbena in July 2023, according to cleveland.com, but she began developing the concept roughly five years ago, when, she said, the non-alcoholic space looked completely different than it does today. Verbena has operated as a cafe by day and a dry bar by evening, per its own description on verbenafreespirited.com, serving teas, coffees, non-alcoholic spirits and mocktails to a Cleveland crowd that didn't have many other options when the shop opened.
Beyond the drink menu, Verbena became something of a community living room. The shop hosted book clubs, tarot readings and other events that gave sober and sober-curious Clevelanders a place to gather without alcohol in the room, cleveland.com reports. That role in the neighborhood is part of what makes the closure sting for regulars who found in Verbena a rare year-round option outside the traditional bar scene.
Cheraso Isn't Done With Non-Alcoholic Drinks
Cheraso isn't stepping away from the non-alcoholic beverage world entirely. She plans to keep hosting non-alcoholic events and to ramp up consulting work with restaurants looking to expand their own non-alcoholic menu options across Cleveland, according to the same cleveland.com report. What comes next for the Hingetown storefront itself remains undetermined, the outlet notes, with no word yet on a new tenant or use for the space.
The timing lines up with a broader shift in drinking habits that Cheraso has watched play out at her own bar. She told News 5 Cleveland, “I am definitely seeing the younger generation drinking less,” and said January tends to be one of Verbena's busiest months as customers take on the Dry January challenge.
A Wider Sobriety Trend Shaped Verbena's Rise
Verbena opened in 2023 as Cleveland's only non-alcoholic bar, per News 5 Cleveland's reporting. It arrived amid national survey data showing a real appetite for cutting back: a 2023 NCSolutions survey found two in five Americans said they were trying to drink less that year, with 61% of surveyed Gen Z respondents and 49% of surveyed millennials looking to reduce their drinking, according to Ideastream Public Media. A 2020 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, cited by the same outlet, found that more than one in four U.S. college students abstained from alcohol, up from one in five in 2002.
Other data points to the same shift. A 2020 University of Michigan study found the share of college-age adults abstaining from alcohol grew from 20% to 28% over two decades, as reported by Fox 8. A 2021 Gallup poll, also cited by Fox 8, found that 60% of U.S. adults drink spirits, wine or beer, down from 65% in 2019. Verbena wasn't alone in catering to that appetite; UnBar Cafe in Cleveland's Larchmere neighborhood opened in 2020 and has hosted its own community events for sober audiences, per Ideastream's reporting.
Non-alcoholic beverage options have become genuinely great and widely available, a shift that has reshaped what a night out without booze can look like in Cleveland. Verbena's three-year run offered a preview of that shift in one Hingetown storefront, even as its own final chapter closes with a party on Sept. 27.
