Doma Bar

Doma Bar describes itself as proudly lesbian-owned and QPOC-operated, and it is explicit about what it is for: a counterweight to every space that asks you to hustle, mask, perform or optimise, built instead around warmth, acceptance, joy, opulence, family and care. That is an unusually direct mission statement for a cocktail bar, and it has a practical consequence that lands squarely in this directory's territory.

A room whose entire proposition is belonging cannot afford to have a category of guest who is stuck with cranberry and soda. Doma keeps beer, wine and zero-proof drinks on hand at all times and runs what it calls a large non-alcoholic menu — not a pair of mocktails appended to the cocktail list, but a parallel section. For anyone who has spent an evening in a bar being handed a glass of Coke while everyone else reads a menu, the difference is the whole experience.

The bar sits at 388 Pine Street in the South End Arts District, a stretch that has become Burlington's most interesting drinking corridor — the Venetian Soda Lounge is a few blocks south, Zero Gravity's beer hall further down the same street. Doma is the newest and the smallest of them, and the one most likely to have something on that you did not expect.

This entry records no signature drinks, because the non-alcoholic list is not published online and this directory does not print a drink name it has not seen on a current menu. What is well evidenced is the standing commitment, stated by the bar itself.

Hours are Tuesday and Wednesday 5pm to 10pm, Thursday to 11pm, Friday and Saturday to midnight. Closed Sunday and Monday.