Mercury

Of all the bars in this city guide, Mercury is the one to go to if you want the widest choice. Omaha's local drinks writing credits it with the most extensive dedicated mocktail list in the city, and the important word in that description is dedicated.

The distinction this directory draws repeatedly is between a bar that will make you something without alcohol and a bar that has written a list of alcohol-free drinks. The first is a service; the second is a menu. A menu means the drinks have been costed, tested and trained on, that the components are stocked for them specifically, and — most importantly for the person ordering — that you get to choose rather than to describe what you like and accept what arrives. Choosing is most of what a bar offers anyone.

Mercury's hours reinforce it: 4pm to midnight, seven days a week, no closed night and no shortened Sunday. Across this batch of cities the venues that turned out to matter most were rarely the ones with the cleverest single drink; they were the ones that were reliably open. A bar that is dark on Sunday and Monday cannot be anybody's default.

This entry deliberately records no signature drinks. The list is extensive, which is the point, but it is not published in a form that could be read for this guide, and this directory does not print a drink name it has not seen on a current menu. Ask for the mocktail list by name — it exists, and it is longer than what you will be shown elsewhere in the city.

South 16th Street puts Mercury a short walk from Wicked Rabbit, Cumbia and Anna's Place, in the downtown cluster where most of Omaha's alcohol-free drinking now happens.