On the way home from dinner at Old Bus Tavern, we stopped by Old Devil Moon (Facebook Link).
The space which Old Devil Moon took over had long been a Latin Bar, but the owners wanted to retire and a group of folks who had been involved in the San Francisco Homebrew club wanted to open a bar. Win/Win.
The owners have been working on remodeling the bar for quite a while, six months to a year, while the neighborhood patiently awaits its chance to deliver a verdict on the new venue.
We were initially going to meet up at Old Devil Moon with some friends who have a 5 year old. When I questioned the owners via instagram whether the venue would be “kid friendly”, I got the following reply, “We welcome everyone! We’re more a “bar with food” than a “restaurant with alcohol,” so it’s the sort of spot that may feel a little too rowdy for kids after a certain hour.” We did stop by with our friends and their son, but there was no space to sit, and, at 6:30pm, already looked a little “rowdy for kids”. Hey, it is their first week open. So we went elsewhere for dinner.
Mrs. Flannestad and I wanted to get back in and check it out, without having to worry about whether it was kid friendly, so we stopped in last night.
They do have a very good tap list of beers, including a few under 5%, so nearly non-alcoholic. They even feature Cask Ales, at this time from Freewheel Brewing, on beer machine. So, if you don’t mind a little alcohol, there you go, a few options.
As is recently trendy in modern venues, they also have spirits and mixed drinks on tap: Fernet, Bourbon, Mint syrup flavored Bourbon (“Poor Man’s Sazerac”). I think they also sometimes have cold brewed Coffee on nitro, but I didn’t see this on the menu when I visited.
On the other hand, as far as I can tell, the only truly non-alcoholic option, other than maybe nitro-coffee, is a self serve ice water dispenser at the back of the restaurant. It is flanked by stacks of the sorts of red plastic cups you’d see at a Pizza Parlor, down to the authentic tang of disk sanitizer. (Did they get them used?) Nothing on the food, drink, or beer menus to indicate even a single non-alcoholic option. And, so far, they’ve been so swamped every time I’ve been in, that I haven’t had the chance to ask if they could make me an off menu non-alcoholic drink.
I guess, like the kid thing, they didn’t figure non-drinkers would be going to a “bar with food”. (See update below, they do have non-alcoholic options, they just were not currently listed on any of the menus.)
Did I mention it is really loud? Sound baffling also must have been a low priority. For someone like myself, with incipient tinnitus from too many loud rock shows, it’s kind of a nightmare. Nearly deafening.
So, it’s an interesting addition to the neighborhood, but the noise level probably makes it not really my scene on busy nights, (which, fortunately for them, seem to be most nights,) despite the good beer and some off menu non-alcoholic drink options.
Updated 09.11.2016:
Received from following comment via instagram from one of the owners of Old Devil Moon. They do have some non-alcoholic options, you just have to ask. Next time.
“For the record, Old Devil Moon has all the nonalcoholic beverages any full liquor bar has, and more, including a variety of juices, ginger beer, and sodas (we even have grapefruit and clementine Izzy on the soda gun), as well as nitro coffee. Obviously, it’s been packed on the opening days after articles came out in several major online publications in SF. We’ve had families and kids in there every day during the early hours, regardless. We’ve been thrilled by the reception we’ve gotten from the neighborhood, almost to a person the locals we’ve heard from are super excited to have us here. If you give us another try, next time you’re in ask a bartender about drinks. Also, in the future when you do your write ups, consider reaching out to the owners or managers of the venues to verify your information, I would’ve been more than happy to have spoken with you via email or in person. Cheers and hope to see you in ODM again!”