Stanley's Northeast Bar Room

Stanley's Northeast Bar Room is a casual neighbourhood bar and gastropub on University Avenue NE, in a building more than 130 years old that has carried the Stanley's name for over fifteen years. It runs thirty-two craft beer taps alongside burgers, sandwiches, nachos and reubens, and keeps a dog-friendly patio open year-round. In early 2025 it came close to closing because of road construction outside, and community support kept it open — which tells you most of what you need to know about its place in Northeast.

The reason it earns a listing is that a bar of this type, in this category, usually offers a non-drinker nothing but soda, and Stanley's keeps a real named mocktail list on the printed drink menu. The NAz Rita is built on Seedlip Grove 42 with agave, lime juice and a salt rim — a genuine margarita structure rather than limeade. The Blood Orange Mock Mule combines blood orange, lime and ginger beer and is served in a copper mug, which sounds trivial and is not: being handed the same vessel as everyone else is a large part of not feeling conspicuous. Alongside those sit a Blackberry Fizz, a Lavender Lemonade and Berry Nice. Meet Minneapolis, the city's tourism office, highlights the NAz Rita and the Blood Orange Mock Mule in its citywide mocktail round-up.

This is not an ambitious cocktail programme and does not claim to be. What it is, is the specific thing that is hardest to find and most needed: an ordinary neighbourhood bar with thirty-two taps, a patio and a burger, where somebody who has stopped drinking can meet friends on a Tuesday and order something made for them off the actual menu. Open daily, from 9am at weekends.