Adrianna Tan
With almost all 20-somethings I meet in California, I tend to assume that they don’t drink alcohol and I’m often right. Alcohol is as cool as tobacco here now. Not at all. No wonder bars are really struggling.
The only people I know here who are really into booze now are elderly millennials and Gen X and Boomers.
(I’m renting a place in Monterey, and everyone is sober)
Adrianna Tan
I stopped drinking in 2022.
Sometimes I still have the practices of a person who came of age with booze.
I brought some NA beer and other NA drinks to festive things. The NA beer is fine, but otherwise time has really weaned me off the rituals of social alcohol and NA replacements.
It’s hard to find non-alcohol centered places where I live now (in SF). Even though drinking culture is way more intense in Singapore, there were at least plenty of late night outdoor food places where you can sit and drink a Milo or iced lime water while your friends drink beer. No such luck here.
Adrianna Tan
When I’m in Monterey, I like going to the Fieldwork Brewery solely for the reason that they have not just one, but three very good NA beers in diff styles. And they have a outdoor patio with a fire pit. And there aren’t many other places to hang out in Monterey!
But on the whole, I don’t feel compelled to want to center alcohol in my life anymore. I do like the taste of shitty IPAs, the more bitter and bad the better, and the plethora of amazing IPAs (amazing to me, shitty to people who hate them) that are now nonalcoholic, more than scratches that itch for me.
Everything else: tea geekery has fully replaced my former whisky and gin geekery.
Adrianna Tan
@scott young people also don’t go out anymore!
And as with all our problems, it’s a permitting problem first and foremost.
scott f
@skinnylatte huh, weird... if the trend is as strong as you say, where are our late-night coffeeshops and our non-alcohol-centered local music venues??
Adrianna Tan
@categulario yes me too
categulario 🐍 🦀 🦎 🇵🇸
@skinnylatte I miss the 24/7 food availability and the salted plumb drink
categulario 🐍 🦀 🦎 🇵🇸
@skinnylatte milo dinosaur!
Adrianna Tan
At Christmas I told a boomer acquaintance ‘did you know the best selling beer at Whole Foods is NA’ and he did not believe me ahahahaha
Adrianna Tan
@scott I dunno, the Center didn’t get permits for teas and had to shut down the tea thing
scott f
@skinnylatte the live music part, you mean?
(Coffeeshops closing earlier isn't a permitting problem... they don't need a different permit to close at 10pm than 2pm, as far as I know.)
Adrianna Tan
@scott they don’t have cafe permits. It was a problem with the hot water situation, I think.
scott f
@skinnylatte oh, was that why they switched to a self-serve model? Hmm. I wonder why they couldn't get permitted as a cafe. But any place legitimately doing business as a cafe could close at a later time without a new permit.
Adrianna Tan
@scott but they also seem too culty to want to do any actual permits lol
Adrianna Tan
@Littlebobbytables it’s pretty nice and toasty.
$8Troll
Fire pit in Monterey had me sold.
Adrianna Tan
@scott going out is hard for lots of age groups! I dunno, something really changed for me as well. I’m much more of a homebody.
I think the owner of Monk’s Kettle said as much in closing his Valencia spot, while attributing it solely to the ‘transcience’ of tech workers in the Mission. Probably partly true, but also just.. going out in general!
scott f
@skinnylatte anyway, just thinking out loud (you don't have to answer) as to why the zoomer dispreference for alcohol hasn't changed these economics at all.
scott f
@skinnylatte it's too bad. Having a tea room open late was nice.
Generally when I talk to coffeeshop owners they cite staffing as the reason for reduced hours. Ritual on Valencia is open til 6pm, which is relatively late now. The sign says these are "temporary hours"...they used to be open til 7, and I guess still hope to return to that. Sometimes, I go by and find a one-off sign up saying they've closed early at 2 or 4 due to understaffing.
Adrianna Tan
@godzero it’s worse now. Food spots close even earlier! The Valencia spots are.. probably no more. Staffing is hard, and service workers can’t live in the city anymore.
Oakland has way more late night food
gz
@skinnylatte
When I moved to the Bay from London about 30 years ago, I found it almost impossible to get a proper meal after 9pm. There was plenty of booze and fast food but little else. I seem to remember that, about 12 years ago, there were coffee shops on Valencia open until about 10pm and a few reasonably good places to get food. This seems to have changed more recently.
I now live in WA so I have no idea what's happening in the Bay anymore.
gz
@skinnylatte
It must be hard for those businesses. ☹️
Back then, there was a Chinese restaurant in Oakland that stayed open until 2 or 3am. I can't remember its name and don't know if it still opens late, or even if it's there.
Are either of the Rudy's still open?
Adrianna Tan
@godzero new gold medal is still around. Still open till 3
Rudy’s can’t fail closed but some former employees just reopened it
Adrianna Tan
@cpm where I come from, alcohol is $20-40 :) each!
cpm
@skinnylatte
not enough of a drinker to grok this stuff, me.
The IPA thing.
we used to drink beer. alc content was low (rel), came in pitchers, drink enough & you may well regret it.
Have had IPAs I really liked.
Very well recieved brewery opened up nearby (15min by bicycle), folks love it. Nice, bicycle friendly, famlies, dogs, kids, oldtimers, fire pits, etc.
had one of their IPAs that came in a small glass, w/tip, cost $10, & I poured it out.
I can't afford it.
who has all this $$?
gz
@skinnylatte
Not familiar with new gold medal but it's cool that it's open late
So sad about Rudy's! I often used to go to the Hollis St one at midnight (or more) when I was working on projects at American Steel. Good that it's reopened even though it's not late anymore.
Adrianna Tan
@godzero new gold medal is the Oakland Chinatown late night place im thinking you’re talking about
Matthew Booth
@skinnylatte I'm convinced that this is opening a space in the market for new kinds of spaces for socialising, which is really all bars are. e.g. Games cafes never used to be a thing. It could be wonderful.
Jim Zajkowski
@skinnylatte
We (Ann Arbor, Mich) have a few coffee shops that are in Arab communities and they are hoppin until their 1AM close. Is there a similar ethnic pocket near you?
Adrianna Tan
@wenge we have Yemeni coffee shops that open till 10 or so, but this coast is a sleepy coast
Jennifer
@skinnylatte that's interesting, a majority of my friends in their 20s and 30s are really into craft beer and mixed drinks here in the southeast. I like a glass of wine with dinner at home but don't like drinking when I go out, mostly because I'm cheap 😂 (I'm GenX).
Adrianna Tan
@Jennifer yeah this was true here.. 10 years ago. In the last few years it’s really died down
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