Rumi Kabob House is a family-run Afghan restaurant in Manchester that has been open for about a year.
“Back in our motherlands, we don't have bars, so our social atmospheres are cafes and nonalcoholic facilities,” said Sip Woodod, Rumi Kabob House’s owner. It’s a family affair: His mother is the head chef at Rumi’s, and his family owns the fried chicken joint right next door.
New Hampshire is seeing a bump in businesses centered on nonalcoholic drinks, as alcohol consumption declines.
A national survey from 2025 showed that the number of adults who drink has declined sharply since 2023, to the lowest rate recorded since the study began in 1939.
Restaurants like Woodod’s, some bars, and even state-run liquor stores are taking advantage of the trend.
Woodod had been pondering how to create an environment where young people can hang out without alcohol, so he decided to soft-launch a late-night cafe setup at the restaurant on the weekends.
He was inspired after visiting New York City’s late-night Yemeni cafes, serving coffees, teas, and desserts — a casual hangout space without alcohol.
“The Yemeni community created a really beautiful environment with the Yemeni cafes. And when I come back out here and I'd want to just hang out with my wife or go out with my brothers to somewhere casual, we wouldn't have anywhere,” said Woodod. “So we said, I think we have to create it.”
While the restaurant’s typical dinner menu is full of kabobs and rice sans alcoholic beverages, the late-night menu is focused on teas, coffees, and desserts — something that might be a bit more affordable for their customers.
“Nowadays, with prices going so high, we realized that we just want people to come hang out, spend 5 to 10 bucks on a latte or a matcha or a pot of tea and hang out for a couple hours,” Woodod said. “You know, it doesn't have to break the bank.”
Woodod said there will be a handful of mocktails on the menu, but recreating an alcoholic beverage-style experience is not the goal. Instead, his core focus is low-caffeinated beverages like teas and coffees that can be sipped during a conversation.
“Although there's nothing wrong with people going out to have casual drinks, sometimes people don't feel comfortable being in that atmosphere at all,” said Woodod. “We want to create an atmosphere where it's completely alcohol free.”
The location of Rumi Kabob House used to be a club and bar, and converting it to a alcohol-free venue puts Woodod at peace.
When he went to the Yemeni cafes in New York, Woodod’s whole family, ages ranging from 13 to 50 years old, enjoyed the environment.
He’s hoping to recreate this family-friendly vibe at Rumi’s Kabob House, but he also thinks that the main crowd will be made up of teens and young adults.
But for now, he’s looking forward to sharing his mother’s cardamom milk tea and homemade desserts with a new crowd.
“I think it gives us a chance to shine and show what our culture is all about and the beauty in it,” Woodod said.
Nonalcoholic spirits and cocktail-inspired flavors
Alcohol sales declined in the years after the pandemic, but there’s also been a general interest in nonalcoholic beverages, according to Joseph Mollica, the chairman of the New Hampshire Liquor Commission.
This includes anything from nonalcoholic beer and wine that mimics the taste of the real thing, to canned zero-proof margaritas and gin and tonics. And don’t forget “functionals,” or drinks that promise health benefits.
New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlets more than quadrupled their nonalcoholic offerings earlier this year and saw nonalcoholic beverage sales increase from $41,914 to $607,693 between 2025 and 2026.
And as sales of alcohol products go down, these nonalcoholic offerings — for now — help support the needs of the state budget.
Mollica said that given the Liquor Commission's statutory responsibility to make money for the state, they are not in the business of turning any consumer away, whether they’re buying alcohol or not.
“And if there's an opportunity to keep our customers happy and keep them coming to our outlets and increase sales, that's what we're here to do,” said Mollica.
Kate Boyle owns Dry Cellar in Portsmouth, the state’s first and only store dedicated to nonalcoholic beverages since 2023. She compares the rise in nonalcoholic beverages to how vegetarianism developed.
“If someone was a vegetarian, they'd be asked why . . . but people were curious. They didn't understand,” Boyle explained. “And now they are a lot more likely to have encountered conversations with people they know and love.. . . . who [have] chosen for any number of reasons to drink less or not drink and have realized that it's in fact not that weird.“
After three years of business, Boyle said her shop is expanding by distributing into local restaurants.
“So that place that you go and have dinner at once every week or once every couple of weeks, I want you to be able to order something else on the menu,” said Boyle.
A bar atmosphere, without the booze
Without, a nonalcoholic bar and restaurant, opened up in Manchester this August and marketed itself as the city’s first spot of this kind.
“We were noticing that a lot of our regulars at our bars that do serve alcohol were starting to dwindle,” said Dan Haggerty, co-owner of Without. “The majority of them had said, 'Well, we're dialing back the drinking. We're also trying to save money. We're not going out that much.' ”
According to Haggerty, his customers’ anecdotes matched the data coming out of his bars.
“So we said, well, let's give these folks a place to go because we want to see them more,” he said.
In the restaurant industry, there’s also a hope that nonalcoholic drinks could help fill gaps from declining alcohol sales, where restaurants traditionally make their highest profit margins.
Haggerty is grounding his expectations.
“I mean, listen, we're opening a bar that doesn't serve alcohol,” he said. “We're not out here to make millions. This is just to add something to the culture.”
Haggerty also owns other hospitality businesses in Manchester to help keep him afloat. Even though this business is venturing into new territory, Haggerty is excited.
“I think that there's room for everything,” said Haggerty. “If there can be 400 Greek pizza places that also serve chicken tenders, there can be one bar that doesn't serve liquor.”
Community art space without booze
Earlier this summer, Gnomies opened in Concord. It’s a business that takes on a lot of identities: cafe, dry-bar, board game lounge, and art event venue.
Owner Susan Riedl started Gnomies to give people a place to gather and be creative without the influence of substances.
“It's not that I have anything against alcohol,” Riedl said. “We're not like a recovery center or anything like that. But we still want to be able to offer options, especially for adults, including myself who no longer drinks alcohol.”
The cafe and dry bar offer drinks made with natural herbs and ingredients, such as lemonades with fresh basil and mocktails with lion’s mane mushroom, alongside food and pastries.
Riedl said she heard in her community that people wanted a third space to go to that’s not home, work, or school. Since opening, she’s seen young adults, families with little children, and retirees all come to Gnomies.
Riedl is excited to foster new connections in the community through art classes. She said the group activity setting offers a space for people to form a connection and reduce the anxiety of being around strangers.
“It allows people to talk about the activity rather than feeling so vulnerable about just talking about themselves,” Riedl said. “And then through this fun experience that they’re having, they start to make connections.”
Gia Orsino contributed reporting.
