Chris Marshall Sober Da t e : Febr u ar y 16, 2007 Home : A u s t in , Te x as Fo u nder + O w ner Sans Bar
The ONLY man to talk to in the USA about alcohol-free drinks is the wonderful Chris Marshall the Founder of SANS BAR which he opened in December 2017. I got to know Chris through TLC (The Luckiest Club with Laura McKowen) where he is a host and is always so very sage in his advice. He is Mr Cool in the AF world and I reached out to him for a chat and spent a wonderful hour together chatting about all things alcohol- free in the ever-expanding category globally. In next month's magazine, Chris has kindly volunteered his time to do a column for Hola Sober readers for which we are grateful! Chris talked about growing up and as the only black kid in a primarily white neighbourhood, he discovered in high school that drinking was an easy way for him to fit in. The same went for college fraternity life and the alcohol train kept running. Ultimately he used alcohol as a means of self-medicating for anxiety and depression before he ended up in rehab at only 23 years old. Ironically the connection he had sought as a young man came to him in sobriety when he began to be more comfortable in his own skin and through the power of living a sober life he made real deep connections and friendships. The belonging he sought as a young boy in Texas came to himwithout any alcohol in his life and is why he set out to create a bar to give connection and in many ways healing to those in the sober community and so Sans Bar was born. I know when you opened up Sans Bar but why did you open it, Chris? We opened Sans Bar as an alternative to the boozy social scene in Austin. I knew there was a need for a space that was comfortable and safe and offered live music. Just because we had stopped drinking alcohol did not mean we had to give up that social space that can be so much fun. Opening up a bar sounds like a great idea but there are many in the sober community that may not have understood the concept behind it, so had you to work hard to make people understand? The biggest challenge we faced was helping people understand the need for an alcohol-free bar. Often we would hear things like “You can’t have fun without drinking” or “You can just go to a coffee shop if you want to socialize”, and what all of these sorts of comments fail to capture is that it can be challenging to make new connections in spaces like a coffee shop. A bar is a place you go to meet new people and have fun.
The founder Chris Marshall believes
"that everyone deserves a space where they are accepted and seen for who they are. We are wired for connection, and Sans Bar is all about deep and meaningful connections. The idea for Sans Bar came in my work as a counsellor. I saw so many people struggle with feelings of isolation and shame because they made a decision to drink less or no alcohol. No matter where you are on the sobriety spectrum, Sans Bar is a place where you belong."
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