Alcohol-Free Things to Do in Virginia Beach

Gershwin's is a Granby Street cocktail bar in downtown Norfolk whose alcohol-free drinks are built on non-alcoholic spirits and finished with the same techniques as its full menu. The Bohemian combines alcohol-free gin with elderflower syrup, grapefruit juice, egg white and bitters — a proper sour, foam and all — while the Grand Illumination pours non-alcoholic whiskey smoked over cherry wood with orange peel and bitters. Smoking a zero-proof drink tableside is the clearest possible signal that a bar considers the alcohol-free order worth its time, since the theatre is the point and none of it depends on the alcohol.

Only You occupies the upper floors above The Veil Brewing Co in Norfolk's Chelsea district, and its zero-proof drinks are composed rather than improvised — three named builds that Visit Norfolk's own guide lists alongside the alcoholic menu. The No Coquito uses Lyre's non-alcoholic rum with coconut milk, coconut cream, cinnamon demerara and vanilla; the Ginger Sorrel Sour layers hibiscus tea with ginger-thyme syrup and lemon; and the Free Spirit pairs a honey-miso-yuzu syrup with calamansi and soda. That last one in particular is a savoury, fermented-edge drink of the sort most bars never attempt without alcohol. It sits directly above The Veil Brewing Co, a short walk from Ceremony, which makes Chelsea an easy pairing.

80/20 Burger Bar on 21st Street in Chelsea stocks both non-alcoholic wines and non-alcoholic beers, which is a more useful combination than it sounds — most bars manage one or neither, and NA wine in particular is the category venues skip because it is expensive and hard to store. It is also the late option in Norfolk's alcohol-free landscape, running to midnight midweek and 2am on Friday and Saturday. For anyone who wants a burger and a cold beer that happens to have no alcohol in it, rather than a project, this is the straightforward answer. It is a couple of minutes on foot from both Ceremony and Only You in Chelsea.

Beachside Social sits on Atlantic Avenue at the Virginia Beach oceanfront, and it keeps mocktails on the menu in a stretch of the city almost entirely given over to frozen drinks and beer. That is the reason to know about it: the oceanfront is where most visitors stay, and it is the hardest few blocks in Hampton Roads to find a considered alcohol-free drink. Beachside Social is a social, ocean-facing room rather than a craft cocktail bar, and it runs late — to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays — which makes it a workable end to an evening for a group where not everyone is drinking.

Press 626 is a wine bar and cafe in a converted Ghent house, and its non-alcoholic offering is a set of Garden Lemonade Spritzers built in three variations — lavender rosemary, chamomile orange, and pomegranate sage. Herb-and-flower pairings like those are a deliberate choice rather than a default: they give a soft drink aromatic complexity and a dry finish, which is exactly what is missing when you take wine off the table. In a venue where the entire proposition is wine, having a considered alternative on the printed list is the difference between a guest being catered for and being tolerated.

Ceremony is Hampton Roads' dedicated dry bottle shop and the anchor of the region's alcohol-free scene — a curated wall of non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits alongside mixers, bitters and sustainable bar tools, run on a zero-waste model. It was founded in Virginia Beach in 2022 and has since grown to multiple locations across Virginia and into North Carolina, which makes it one of the few alcohol-free retailers anywhere to have proven the format can scale. The Norfolk shop on Baldwin Avenue is the flagship, and the company has extended beyond retail into a non-alcohol pop-up bar inside a local coffee shop.