Good News Bar

Good News Bar opened on Park Boulevard in Hillcrest in mid-July 2025 — soft-launching over Pride weekend — as San Diego's first dedicated alcohol-free bar, in a city whose drinking culture had until then offered non-drinkers a choice between a coffee shop and staying home. The concept came from Kaylee and Crystal Clark, a married pair of former bartenders who stopped drinking themselves and wanted somewhere that worked as a bar rather than as a substitute for one; the bar has been operated by its majority owner, Ality Richardson, since August 2025. The name is taken from Mac Miller's song "Good News," and the bar is explicit that it exists partly to raise awareness around addiction and mental health rather than simply to sell drinks — a framing that Hillcrest, long the centre of San Diego's LGBTQ+ nightlife, has taken to.

The operating model is the interesting part: coffee by day, cocktails by night, with a non-alcoholic bottle shop built into the room so you can drink there or take something home. Mornings run coffee, tea and freshly baked pastries alongside functional cocktails. Evenings split the list in two. The "functional" drinks are built around adaptogens, nootropics, nervines, kava and hemp-derived CBD, and are mostly 0.0% ABV. The "free-spirited" cocktails reimagine classics using non-alcoholic spirits and sit under 0.5% ABV, joined by apéritifs, dealcoholized wines, non-alcoholic beers and cider. The named house builds — The Merry Go Round, The Woods, Deborah Downer and Goosebumpz — are the ones regulars order, and the bar stocks Best Day Brewing, Three Spirit and Curious Elixirs among others. Trivia nights, live music and DJ sets fill the week, which is the part that matters most: a bar for people who do not drink only works if there is a reason to turn up on a Tuesday. It runs Tuesday to Sunday, to midnight on Friday and Saturday.