Citizen Public House

Citizen Public House opened in Old Town Scottsdale in 2011 and marked fifteen years in business in February 2026 — an unusually long run for a Valley restaurant, and long enough that its Original Chopped Salad has become the dish people name before they name the address. The room is a gastropub in the proper sense rather than the marketing one: a full kitchen and a serious bar given equal weight, open daily from 4pm to 10pm, with happy hour running the first two hours every day of the week rather than being rationed to weeknights. Its position in the middle of Old Town puts it within walking distance of most of Scottsdale's bar district, which matters if the rest of your group is drinking and you are not — leaving is easy.

The non-alcoholic side is constructed the same way as the spirited one. Rather than sweetened juice, the bar works from real alcohol-free spirits. The Gemini is Seedlip Grove 42 — the citrus-forward expression — with butterfly pea flower tea, ginger syrup and lemon, a build that shifts colour as the acid hits the tea and reads as a drink rather than a novelty. The Nojito skips the rum in favour of pressed mint, elderflower tea syrup, lime and soda, keeping the herbal bite that usually gets lost when a mojito is made without alcohol and simply sweetened instead.

Phoenix New Times named the venue in its January 2024 survey of metro Phoenix bars where alcohol-free options appear on the printed menu rather than being improvised on request. That is the distinction that decides whether an evening works: a bartender who has to invent something is a bartender you are apologising to. Two things are worth knowing before you go. This is a full-service bar with a substantial alcohol list, not an alcohol-free room, so the zero-proof section is a part of the menu rather than the character of the venue. And the kitchen is the main event here — the format assumes you are eating, not perching at the bar for one drink.