Mr West Bar & Bottle Shop

Mr West opened on Footscray's bustling Nicholson Street Mall in 2017 and quickly became a cornerstone of Melbourne's inner west. It's a two-storey operation: a bottle shop and casual bar rolled into one, deliberately down to earth and, in Broadsheet's words, "nerdy and obsessive about drinks." Local students and families take the picnic tables out front, there are comfy booth seats inside, and an upstairs courtyard that catches the good afternoon sun.

The main draw is a set of 24 taps pouring beer, cider, wine and cocktails, backed by a shop floor deep in natural wine, wild-fermented and Belgian-style beer, and obscure mezcal. Crucially for a non-drinker, that same obsessive curation extends to the zero-proof shelf: the bottle shop carries a real alcohol-free range spanning AF beer, AF red, white and sparkling wine, and adult non-alcoholic spirits, so this is a genuine suburban bottle shop where you can walk in and buy zero-proof to take home.

Specific non-alcoholic stock has included Garage Project's Tiny non-alc Stout and non-alc IPA and Dr Lo non-alcoholic sparkling, while the bar upstairs mixes house-made non-alcoholic drinks alongside its cocktail list. NoLo Life, the Australian no/low directory, lists Mr West with a GOOD range of AF and LA drinks and a NoLo rating of 4.

Food stays casual and BYO-friendly, with cheese boards, charcuterie and ploughman's platters, and staff happy for you to bring in banh mi, Indian or African food from the surrounding streets. It's the kind of unpretentious neighbourhood room where ordering an alcohol-free beer or a house NA drink raises no eyebrows.