The Barnes

The Barnes sits at 225 Powell Street, a block from the cable car turnaround, as the ground-floor restaurant and bar of the Union Square hotel that shares its name. The hotel's own description of the room is straightforward about what it wants to be — handcrafted cocktails and shareable appetizers, with a food menu running from a superfood salad through burgers and steak frites — and it is open every day from 5pm to 11pm, which makes it an option for the stretch of the evening when much of Union Square is oriented towards tourists rather than to anyone looking for a proper drink.

What makes it worth listing is that the zero-proof drinks are named, built and priced level with the rest of the bar. The beverage menu carries a distinct non-alcoholic heading holding three cocktails at $16, against $18 for the full-proof house list. The Non-Alcoholic Negroni is made with Ritual zero-proof gin and Lyre's Italian Spritz, finished with orange, and reproduces the bitterness of the original rather than substituting a sweet red soda. Your NA Poolside pairs Lyre's Italian Spritz with Ritual's agave blanco, lime and almond syrup for something closer to a sour. Never Been Kissed is built on Seedlip Spice with lime, hibiscus, ginger beer and mint, the longest and most refreshing of the three. Below the cocktails the bar stocks Athletic Brewing's Run Wild IPA at $8 and a non-alcoholic Asahi at the same price, so beer drinkers are covered as well. The hotel's dining pages describe the bar as offering zero-proof drink options as a standing part of the programme rather than as a seasonal promotion, which is unusual for a Union Square hotel bar of this size. The three cocktails are built rather than poured from a bottle, using two different non-alcoholic base spirits plus a botanical distillate, so a table can order a bitter aperitivo, a sour and a long highball without repeating an ingredient. A five per cent Healthy San Francisco mandate surcharge is added to all checks.