You can drink differently eliminating alcohol, partly or entirely, and be glad you did.

That’s the message being delivered by Monday Morning, a new alcohol-free bottle shop and tasting room offering over 400 non-alcoholic drink options now open in Pacific Plaza at 1854 Garnet Ave. Located behind Great Plaza Buffet and next to Cafe Athena, the business also doubles as a community meeting space with its separate tasting room.

The company invites guests to come in and try before they buy, its large assortment of NA products from around the globe. “We understand there are many reasons why you might want non-alcoholic beverages,” states the website at mondaymorning-af.com. “Whether you’re 100% AF or mixing NAs into your lifestyle, we’re here for you. Whatever brings you to our AF shop – cutting back, going dry, or simply sober curious — you’re welcome here.”

“The vision was just helping San Diego drink differently,” said owner Zane Curtis about his operation. He added that converts to NA beverages “realize that a large part of drinking differently is community. I wanted to create a safe place where people could come and have a community with like-minded people. Whether it’s a day, a week, or a lifetime, everybody has a period where they just don’t want to drink. And when you don’t want to drink, why should you be required to go to bars, and other places, to find non-alcoholic, versus having a place that’s created a safe space for you to come?”

Curtis relishes giving guests a chance to sample his myriad NA products. So you try an NA wine, beer, or whiskey and discover that, yes indeed, they taste little or no different – perhaps even better – than their alcoholic counterparts.

In June of 2023, after a self-described “20-year conversation” over whether he was drinking too much or not, Curtis said he “woke up that Monday morning feeling that I was probably just tired of the conversation. I needed to make a change. So I white-knuckled it for the first six months with what San Diego provided me with which was non-alcoholic. After working through my drinking challenge, I realized there might be other people in San Diego who wanted to drink differently.”

Curtis said in other parts of the United States, and elsewhere around the world, there is a much greater proliferation of NA options for those who want to curtail or eliminate using alcohol.

After quitting drinking himself, Curtis said he realized he had to “re-invent his whole life,” noting that entailed finding spaces where alcohol was neither present nor encouraged. “So it was important for me to create not just a bottle shop with over 400 drink options, but also a place where people could come and just hang out and try things and relax,” he concluded.

Curtis hopes his bottle business will become more sample-focused in the future, doing things like having guest bartenders show up to create things like NA mocktails.

Like quitting smoking or several other lifestyle changes people make to live healthier, Curtis said switching to NA alternatives is just a matter of “changing that script that we’re all used to that ‘I need alcohol to live,’ versus “I can have drinks without alcohol that have good flavor.”

MONDAY MORNING BOTTLE SHOP

Where: Pacific Plaza, 1854 Garnet Ave.

Contact: mondaymorning-af.com, 858-412-3253.