Dray (Central Square, Cambridge)

Dray opened its Central Square shop in January 2025, less than two years after founder Pat Dooling launched the original South End store in late 2023. The Cambridge site sits at 5 Columbia Street inside the Market Central development, a short walk from the Central Square T stop, and extends the format across the river into a neighbourhood with a dense student and graduate population that has been one of the faster-moving markets for alcohol alternatives. WBZ NewsRadio 1030 covered the grand opening, quoting the intent behind the design directly: that it is meant to look exactly like a high-end liquor store or wine shop, with the one key difference that everything is non-alcoholic. That framing is the whole proposition. The fixtures, the shelf talkers and the merchandising are borrowed wholesale from conventional drinks retail.

The assortment is the same deep catalogue Dray runs in the South End and is organised by category rather than by wellness claim. Non-alcoholic beer is the largest section, spanning pilsners, hazy IPAs, stouts and sours; non-alcoholic wine covers still red and white, sparkling and rose; zero-proof spirits stand in for gin, whiskey, tequila, amaro and aperitivo; and there is a substantial ready-to-drink shelf of pre-mixed cocktails and functional seltzers, plus mixers, tonics, bitters and glassware. Stocked brands include Seedlip, Lyre's, Ghia, Three Spirit, Kin Euphorics, Dr. Zero Zero and Martini, and the range turns over as new producers reach the US market. Because the shop holds no alcohol at all, it serves a function a licensed store cannot: someone avoiding alcohol entirely can browse the full inventory without having to navigate around it. Staff make recommendations by flavour profile and occasion rather than steering to a house brand. The Cambridge shop keeps the same trading pattern as the South End original, opening Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 8pm and closing on Mondays.