Little Jumbo

Little Jumbo opened on 7 November 2017 at 241 Broadway Street in Five Points, in the old Jenkins grocery, and co-owner Chall Gray's approach to the fit-out explains why the room works: they tried to let the room dictate what would work best, because the building has so much character and they wanted to let the bones of it show. What emerged is a warmly lit refuge with tin ceilings, green leather and, as the bar puts it, a thousand recipes behind the counter. Gray runs it with Jay Sanders, with Leisa Payne in the kitchen. In 2025 USA Today named it Bar of the Year, and Garden & Gun has placed it among the best of the South — remarkable recognition for a neighbourhood bar in a city with a great many of them. It opens at 4pm every day and there is free parking in the Five Points lot.

The non-alcoholic list is one of the longest in Asheville, printed under its own heading, "Spirit-Free Sippers", and running seven drinks between $9 and $10 — roughly half what the full cocktails cost. What lifts it above most is the range of bases: three different non-alcoholic spirit houses appear rather than one. Rita's Day Off ($10) uses Ritual's non-alcoholic tequila with basil, lime, orange, lemon and agave. Mint to Refresh You ($9) uses Ritual's rum with lime, mint and soda. Two drinks are built on Drømme — the Cos-No-Politan ($9) on Drømme Awake with cranberry and Regan's orange bitters, and Drømme Roll Please ($10) on Drømme Calm with grapefruit and Mediterranean tonic. Shoots Then Leaves ($9) works Seedlip Garden 108 against a spicy ginger ale and Scrappy's celery bitters, which is the savoury option. The Berry-Nice Gimlet ($10) is the most layered, combining an Amethyst blueberry-ginger-mint with lime, two kinds of bitters and orange flower water. The list rotates, so treat any older set of names as historical.