Bar Owner Kept Her Staff, Built a Nationwide NA Cocktail Brand
Instead of laying off staff during COVID, one bar owner pivoted to nonalcoholic cocktails — and turned loyalty into a national brand.
When the pandemic forced bars to close, most owners cut staff and hoped for the best. This Cleveland-area entrepreneur made a different call — she kept her people on payroll and got to work building something new. That decision, gutsy at the time, ended up being the foundation of a nonalcoholic cocktail brand now sold across the country.
The nonalcoholic beverage space has exploded in recent years as consumers — especially younger ones — cut back on drinking without wanting to give up the social ritual of a well-crafted drink. Timing a brand launch to that cultural shift, even if it happened out of necessity, turned out to be a sharp move.
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What makes this story tradeable is the underlying trend: the NA spirits and mocktail category is one of the fastest-growing segments in the beverage industry. Entrepreneurs who planted flags during COVID chaos are now sitting on early-mover advantages that bigger players are scrambling to buy or replicate. This founder's refusal to abandon her team didn't just earn loyalty — it lit the fuse on a business built to scale.
The brand's nationwide retail presence signals it crossed the hardest threshold any emerging beverage company faces: convincing distributors and shelf buyers it has staying power. That's not a small thing. Most small-batch drink brands never make it past regional shelves, let alone go national.
Her bet on her people paid off in more ways than one. The staff she refused to cut became the crew that helped her build the brand from scratch — proof that operational decisions made under pressure can reshape a business's entire trajectory. Continue reading at cleveland.com (paris wolfe).
