Pinky's

Pinky's sits on Norfolk Street in Scott's Addition, in the middle of Richmond's densest concentration of breweries and bars, and it has built a reputation for being a good deal more thoughtful about non-drinkers than its neighbours.

The detail worth dwelling on is price. Pinky's prices its mocktails below its cocktails. It is a small operational decision with an outsized effect on how a non-drinker feels: the most frequently voiced grievance in the whole category is paying twelve or fourteen dollars for a drink whose most expensive component was deliberately left out. Charging less is an acknowledgement that the customer noticed, and it is rarer than it should be.

The drinks themselves are named menu items rather than dealer's choice. Local coverage picks out the Cyprus Cooler and The Afternoon in Monaco, the latter built from strawberry, basil, lime and soda water — a bright, herbaceous long drink rather than a sugary one, and the sort of thing that holds up across a whole evening rather than cloying after one glass. Non-alcoholic Heineken is stocked as well, which covers the other common case: someone who does not want a project, just a cold beer that happens to have no alcohol in it.

The practical shape of the place is worth knowing. It is closed Mondays and Tuesdays and runs 11am to 10pm the rest of the week, so it works for lunch and afternoons as much as evenings — useful in a district that is otherwise oriented entirely around taproom hours. For a group splitting between drinkers and non-drinkers in Scott's Addition, it is one of the easiest rooms in Richmond to suggest. The kitchen runs all afternoon rather than opening only for dinner, which matters in a district where most doors stay shut until four.