Dry January and Veganuary: Where to Eat and Drink—and Park—in Saratoga

Kick off the new year with more plant-based meals, less alcohol and easy-peasy parking.

Cantina’s margaritas can be made NA (non-alcoholic); the Scallions and Henry Street Taproom parking lot (Pizza Works is now closed); a vegan salad from 9 Miles East.

This holiday season, I did my very best to disconnect from the never-ending churn of Saratoga life, and yet…I couldn’t totally get away. Heck, I went all the way to Stratton Mountain on the day after Christmas only to discover that the après ski entertainment was none other than Saratoga’s Garland Nelson. And while I’ve spent the last two weeks consciously trying to not think about work, here I am writing a story about the things I noticed over the holidays.

For one, New Year’s resolutions are (obviously) front of mind, with everyone from Instagram influencers to The Atlantic touting ways to reinvent yourself in 2024, or reasons you shouldn’t try to. (While a wooden duck from Samantha Nass Floral Design Shoppe was my favorite Christmas gift that I got this year, a subscription to The Atlantic was a close second.) The Atlantic has also written about Dry January, an annual campaign in which people—up to one-fifth of the population—abstain from drinking alcohol in the first month of the year. The growing popularity of Dry January has been credited to the fact that Gen Z is drinking less than older generations, a trend Saratoga City Tavern owner Jay Fitch told me he’s noticed in Saratoga.

This is unrelated to the larger story, but I love my duck.

Another first-month-of-the-year trend that’s back this year is Veganuary—eating vegan for the month of January. As longtime SLAH readers know, I’m vegan year-round (except for that time that I accidentally signed up to judge a chocolate-making contest). I make a conscious effort not to push my dietary habits onto anyone else, and yet I’ve been told in the last week that two—two!—people close to me are going to try out veganism. Whether that’s my doing or a result of recently released documentaries such as the Netflix seriesYou Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, I’m not sure.

My last holiday season observation? Parking in Saratoga sucks. No, I’m not talking about when literally every spot in the YMCA parking lot was taken on Tuesday after work (that was on me for going at possibly the busiest gym moment of the year). I’m talking about when I tried to go to lunch last Friday, and drove around for 20 minutes looking for a spot. (To each their own. Abby here, with a preemptive alternative opinion: “I’d pay anything to not have to drive around for 20 minutes—but have already bookmarked the below parking list.) Admittedly, I didn’t try the City Center garage (I refuse to pay for parking), but all my go-to spots were full: the library, Spring Street, the top of the Harvey’s lot…Even the oft-overlooked spot next to the mailbox outside of Uncommon Grounds was taken.

I know the Saratoga City Center parking garage is there…I just don’t want to park in it.

And so, I’ve decided that Saratoga needs a guide to which restaurants serve mocktails, have vegan food on the menu, and have their own parking lots. Unfortunately for plant-based teetotalers who don’t want to drive around, there’s not a whole lot of overlap.

Bars and Restaurants With Mocktails on the Menu

I’m sure most bars can make you a mocktail if you ask, but here are 10 that have a set mocktail list right on the drink menu: