While big box giants jump on the NA boom, mom-and-pop shops prioritize community with a personal touch.
When Kirstin Vracko’s husband went to rehab in May 2023, she had no plans to attempt sobriety in solidarity. “I told him ‘you’re on your own,’” she says. Drinking was ingrained into her social life, and she didn’t want to give it up. But she softened as she saw her husband take his first steps toward recovery. “I saw a change in him that was amazing,” she says, “and I wanted to support that. So I got sober at the same time.
But the second they get to my sample table and they start trying products that are out there, they’ll say ‘I’m going to go with that freeform spirit.’” That model of personalized service, sampling, and brand discovery, is what a lot of operators say sets them apart from the big box stores. Aqxyl Storms, founder of Minus Moonshine in Brooklyn, likens their shop to the music and record shops they knew growing up. “We don’t have a listening station, but we have tastings,” they say.
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