Beginning this week, Dot Dot Dot will remain closed Sunday through Wednesday, opening the cocktail bar for service only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Owner Stefan Huebner says across the city, few diners are venturing out early in the week. He felt it wasn’t worth risking the safety of his staff to serve a few dozen guests. 

“I’m not trying to put a dollar amount on what’s worth getting sick — I understand that kind of seems weird,” he says. “But I also have to keep the business afloat so we all have a job to come back to.”

Instead, Dot Dot Dot will put more effort into selling its to-go cocktail kits and launching a new line of syrups. When the bar first started offering its kits during the shutdown, Huebner says they were selling about 300 a week. That number dropped to around 100 once restaurants reopened, but Huebner hopes to get that number up to around 200, which will bring in enough revenue for him to make up for the hours his staff will lose by closing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. 

The kits range from classic cocktails, like old-fashioneds and mojitos, to Dot Dot Dot’s signature drinks, including the favorite Lily Wants a Pony, named after Huebner’s daughter. Each kit makes about a dozen cocktails and includes large format or crushed ice, house-made syrup, and garnishes. You can order them online and pick them up at the bar. 

“We have a lot of people in our demographic and our members who aren’t ready to go out yet,” Huebner says. “They see the news and they just assume every bar’s got 300 people in it and is doing it the wrong way, so they’re not going out. This is a way for them to still have a great cocktail, have a cocktail experience, and do it safely from their own homes.”

A new line of syrups is launching soon, too, likely next week. They’ll be sold in glass bottles with custom labels for $18 to $20 for a 375ml bottle, with the hope the syrups will eventually be available to purchase from local shops. To start, the bar is bottling falernum, orgeat, and Dot Dot Dot’s house vermouth blend. Huebner wants to ensure they can get the kits and syrups moving quickly so that if restaurants are forced to shut down again, the bar will be better prepared to handle it. 

“Part of it, too, is when we get shut down again, I want to be ready and moving and firing on all cylinders when it goes back up to 300 kits a week,” he says. 

The bar will also host a few special tasting dinners on Wednesday nights, and mixologist Brittany Clark will be joining us on Aug. 6 for a Virtual Happy Hour. Get tickets for that event here. —Kristen Wile

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