Lucille

King Street is the short diagonal running off the Capitol Square towards Lake Monona, and it is one of the densest restaurant blocks in Madison. Lucille sits at the top of it at number 101, doing wood-fired pizza and a full bar across two floors, and it functions as the unfussy end of the downtown drinking scene — a place you can walk into on a Tuesday without a reservation and still get a properly made drink.

The non-alcoholic list is short and seasonal rather than long and static, which is the right trade for a room this size. The Honeycrisp and Tart Cherry Mule is the autumn build — apple and sour cherry set against ginger, so it lands tart and spiced rather than sweet, and the mule format gives it the length and the copper-mug ritual that makes a non-alcoholic drink feel like a drink rather than a consolation. The Pineapple Mint No-Jito is the summer counterpart, muddled to order. Both appear in Madison Eats Food Tours' guide to the city's must-try non-alcoholic drinks, and City Cast Madison independently names the No-Jito.

The hours are the practical argument for putting Lucille in a downtown plan. It opens at 11am Thursday through Sunday and runs to 11pm most nights and 1am on Friday and Saturday, which is later than Merchant, Heritage Tavern or Eno Vino manage. For a group that wants to eat and then keep going, that removes the usual problem of the evening ending early because the good zero-proof room shuts. Merchant and Settle Down Tavern are both a two-minute walk away on Pinckney Street, and the Great Dane's downtown brewpub is around the corner on Doty.