Bar Please!

Bar Please! occupies the third floor at 620 West Idaho Street in downtown Boise, one level above Thick as Thieves. The two are separate bars in the same building with the same hours, so a visit to one makes the other essentially free.

Its alcohol-free drink is a Kimchi Michelada with watermelon shaved ice, and it is worth describing properly because almost nobody makes anything like it. A michelada is normally beer with lime, chilli, salt and something savoury — Worcestershire, clamato, hot sauce. Remove the beer and most bars would sweeten to compensate. Going the other way, toward kimchi, doubles down on the parts that were never about alcohol in the first place: fermentation funk, salt, chilli heat, sourness. The watermelon shaved ice then cuts across all of it with cold and sweetness.

That combination is a real piece of drink design. It also demonstrates something worth understanding about the category: savoury and fermented flavours are the most underused tools in alcohol-free bartending, because they deliver complexity without relying on either sugar or the warmth of a spirit. A drink that is salty, sour and spicy holds attention across a whole glass in a way a fruit cooler cannot.

The grade is an honest 3 — one named drink is not a programme, however good the drink is. But the hours are strong, 4pm to midnight through the week and 1am on Friday and Saturday, and the building's double-bar arrangement makes this one of the most convenient stops downtown. Try the michelada first; if it is not to your taste, Thick as Thieves is one flight down with three more options. Between the two floors, this single address is the most efficient stop in downtown Boise for anyone not drinking.