Howl at the Moon

Howl at the Moon on West Crockett Street is a duelling-piano bar on the River Walk — a chain format, loud, tourist-heavy, and built entirely around the performance. Two pianists trade songs and take requests; the room sings along.

That format is exactly why it is worth listing. The recurring difficulty of a sober night out is not the absence of a good drink but the absence of anything else happening. In a quiet cocktail bar, the drink is the event, and being the person without one is conspicuous for three hours. In a room where two people are playing Bohemian Rhapsody at volume and everyone is shouting the words, nobody has the attention to spare for what is in your hand. Entertainment venues do more for non-drinkers than most dedicated mocktail menus, and they are systematically underrated for it.

The drinks are straightforward — Mother of Dragons and Purple Rain, both named on Visit San Antonio's list — and the bar also stocks non-alcoholic beer and wine, which covers the guest who wants something familiar rather than a construction. It is a chain offering, and the grade says so honestly.

The hours are the other advantage: 7pm to 2am every night, from 6pm on Friday and Saturday. This is a genuine late-night venue in the middle of the River Walk, where a very large share of San Antonio's visitors are staying. For anyone who wants to be out until one in the morning without drinking — a group where one person is driving, say, or a visitor in recovery who still wants a night out — it is one of the few honest answers in the tourist core. It is also loud enough that nobody will ask what you are drinking, which for some people is the entire point.