The Coffee Bar at The Durham

The Durham is a mid-century hotel on East Chapel Hill Street, and the room worth knowing about is not the rooftop bar but the coffee bar on the ground floor. It opens at seven in the morning, closes at nine at night, and carries a printed "Spirit Free" section on its beverage menu — which makes it the only venue in this guide you can use for a breakfast meeting and an evening drink without changing anything about your order.

The spirit-free list is five deep and covers a genuine range. The Ruby Spritz is the most cocktail-like, built on Lyre's Italian Orange with lime, soda and falernum for spice. The Pear Shrub uses a vinegar-based shrub with honey and local sage over soda, which gives it the acidity that keeps a long drink interesting. Vitamin Tea is a carrot tea with orange and honey. The Pom-Hib Spritzer is the simplest and cheapest at five dollars, and there is a properly made Shirley Temple built on the hotel's own grenadine with Mexican sprite and luxardo cherries — a drink usually served badly, made well here.

Separately, the coffee side produces the Durham Coffee Soda, which has become the thing this room is known for: Markola coffee syrup, club soda and lemon, served long over ice. There is also a Durham Coffee Milk and a shaken cold brew vanilla latte. The coffee itself is Counter Culture, roasted in Durham, which is the local detail that earns the hotel some credibility with the city.

One clarification, because published guides have it wrong: the non-alcoholic programme belongs to this coffee bar, not to The Roof, the hotel's rooftop cocktail bar upstairs. The Roof serves craft cocktails and small plates and does not run a comparable zero-proof list. If you have read about spirit-free drinks at The Durham, this is the room they were describing. Note the venue also serves alcohol and CBD drinks, so it is not an alcohol-free space.