Teller

Teller occupies the former State Savings Bank of Victoria, a 1918 heritage building on Lygon Street in Brunswick East that has been reworked into an all-day diner and bar. The room keeps the bank's bones under modern, warm decor and opens out to a front bar, a leafy beer garden and an upstairs function room, with a serious bar stocking around 11 independently brewed beers on tap. The kitchen leans into elevated pub food with a Mediterranean tilt, spanning brunch through to atmospheric dinners.

The non-alcoholic offering is a genuine, printed part of the drinks list rather than an afterthought. Five zero-proof cocktails carry named builds and ingredients: 'Rumour Has It' (A$15) with Brunswick Aces Sapiir Diamonds gin, yuzu, pomegranate, mint and lime; 'The Spritz You Miss' (A$17) on Lyre's Italian Spritz with soda and Plus & Minus prosecco and orange; the 'Bloody Mojito' (A$14) with Four Pillars Bloody Bandwagon; the 'Rustic Verve Spritz' (A$13) using NON #9 blackberries and Stanley plum; and the 'Wildwood Shrub' (A$14) with a house-made berry coulis and lemon-and-ginger shrub.

The fridge and wine list back it up. Non-alcoholic beers include Heaps Normal Quiet XPA (A$11), Guinness 0.0 (A$13), Blackman's Zero lager and Capital Pacific Ale, plus Perla sparkling mate tea. Alcohol-free wines run to Altina 0% sparkling brut, Leitz Eins Zwei alcohol-free chardonnay and NON #9, so a non-drinker can move across sparkling, white and aromatic alternatives.

EatDrinkPlay called Teller a standout local, and NoLo Life lists it as a five-star alcohol-free favourite for its curated AF range and casual bites in a relaxed indoor/outdoor setting - the kind of neighbourhood all-day venue where the zero-proof drinker gets a real list rather than a token soda.

The beer garden is what people come for, and it happens to be the format in which not drinking is easiest. Pub With No Booze calls Teller a cracking spot to sit in the garden over good food with a non-alcoholic list that just keeps on giving, with beer, cocktails and wine all available.

All three categories is the part worth noting. Most venues that stock alcohol-free options cover one — usually beer, because it is the easiest to buy in and the fastest to pour. Covering beer, cocktails and wine means someone has made three separate purchasing decisions and found space for three sets of stock, which is a real commitment rather than a gesture. In practice it means a table of four in the garden on a Sunday can order the same rounds as each other for a whole afternoon, which is the actual test of whether a venue works for a mixed group rather than merely permits one.