Lolita's

Lolita's occupies a prominent spot on West Cary Street in Carytown, and like most Mexican restaurants in an American city its bar identity is built around the margarita. What makes it worth listing in an alcohol-free guide is that it has not treated that as a reason to neglect the people who are not drinking one.

The standing list carries five mocktail flavours — mango, hibiscus and corazón among them — which is a genuine menu section rather than a token line, and buzz-free margaritas sit alongside them. The hibiscus in particular is a sensible choice: agua de jamaica has real tartness and depth, and it holds its own against the salt, chilli and lime that dominate the food in a way that most sweet mocktails cannot.

The aguas frescas deserve their own mention, and they are the reason a non-drinker often has an easier evening in a Mexican restaurant than in a cocktail bar. These are traditional fruit waters — horchata, jamaica, tamarindo and their relatives — that have always been part of the cuisine and were never conceived as substitutes for anything. Ordering one is not a statement or an accommodation; it is simply what a lot of people at the table are drinking anyway. That absence of social friction is worth more than a long zero-proof list at a venue where the alcohol-free order marks you out.

The restaurant keeps generous hours, to 11:30pm on Friday and Saturday, and sits within a few minutes' walk of Point 5, Richmond's non-alcoholic bottle shop, and The Daily Kitchen & Bar. That corner of Carytown is the most concentrated stretch of alcohol-free-friendly options in the city. The three together make the easiest afternoon-into-evening a non-drinker can assemble in Richmond without needing a car.