Nicole Pietrandrea Hough for AFTER: 

You’re meeting people all over the country in the alcohol-free community [at the Sans Bar Tour parties]. What’s the vibe like out there? 

Chris Marshall: 

I think people are really excited about connecting to [an alcohol-free] community. They might have seen nonalcoholic drinks on Instagram or other social media, and they’re excited to experience it for themselves. It’s really exciting to have some of our beverage partners come into the event and be part of it. But more importantly, it’s the sober people, some of whom travel two hours or more to these gatherings for the opportunity to become part of this larger movement and form local connections. Finding those connections with people who are like you, who are not drinking for whatever reason. 

N: Take me back to your starting point when you decided to start Sans Bar. What did that look like for you? 

C: It was a decision that I didn’t want to make. I had the idea for an alcohol-free bar for a long time. I wanted someplace to go personally and I believed that it was something that people needed. But I also recognized it was going to be a lot of work. I was so afraid of the work. It was more than I could do with a full-time job and it just seemed like this hill to climb that was too much. 

I was working [as a licensed substance use counselor] at the time and had a client who was struggling. The last time we talked was on a Friday night, the client told me that they had been struggling to choose between being social and being alcohol-free. They were mid-30s, professional, really brilliant, and it made me so sad that this was [the choice someone had to make]. That client eventually succumbed to their substance use, and that was the breaking point for me. That made the decision [to start an alcohol-free bar] a lot easier. 

I knew there were a lot of things stacked against the success of Sans Bar, but I didn’t care. The only thing on my mind at that time was to create a place where people could find their starting point if they were deciding [between being social or being alcohol-free]. That’s why I started Sans Bar.