Queen & Rook Game Cafe

Queen & Rook is a board game cafe on South Street, and it has quietly assembled one of the longest non-alcoholic drinks lists in Philadelphia. The menu carries a printed heading — "Zero Proof Cocktails & Beer" — with eight drinks beneath it, all flat-priced at eight dollars. That is a section, not a gesture.

The builds are properly constructed and the names are, predictably, deep-cut fantasy references. Princess Rosalina uses butterfly pea tea, which is the deep blue flower infusion that turns violet when acid hits it, with lychee, lime and soda — so the drink changes colour in front of you as the lime goes in. Galadriel is the savoury outlier and the most interesting thing on the list: pineapple and lychee cut with jalapeño, tajín and cilantro, which is a margarita's flavour architecture with no tequila anywhere near it. Two drinks use house shrubs — Abraxos gets Iron Teeth with blackberry, mint and lemon, and Smaug's Scales with strawberry and basil — and a shrub is a drinking vinegar, which supplies the sharp acidity that makes a non-alcoholic drink taste finished rather than sugary. Turning Violet is a blueberry-cardamom sparkling lemonade. The Butterbeer, at ten dollars, is non-alcoholic and available vegan or dairy.

The bottled side is unusually well chosen for a cafe: Guinness 0 on draught, Best Day's hazy and Kölsch, and St. Agrestis Phony Negroni. There are also eight house loose-leaf teas by the cup or pot, with names in the same register — Brew Tang Forever, Invasion of the Red Pandas, Psycho Kitty.

The format is the real argument. A board game cafe is one of the few evening venues where the activity, not the drink, is the reason everyone is at the table — you are playing something for two hours, the glass is incidental, and nobody is counting rounds. Add a genuine eight-drink zero-proof list and it becomes one of the strongest nights out in the city for a group where some people drink and some do not. It is licensed, so this is not an alcohol-free room; it is a room where not drinking costs you nothing. Open to midnight Friday and Saturday, from five in the evening on weekdays.