Meeting people
How to make friends in NYC without drinking or going to bars
By ToShareAMeal ·
Short answer
You can meet people in New York without drinking by choosing formats where the alcohol is incidental rather than central: coffee, breakfast, lunch, dim sum, dessert, food halls and shared plates. The practical trick is to pick a plan that already has a place and a time, so nobody has to propose “drinks” by default. On ToShareAMeal, a Meal Seed can be a coffee, a brunch, a dessert or a full dinner, and nothing about a table requires ordering alcohol.
The problem is the default, not you
Not drinking is common, and the reasons vary: taste, health, cost, medication, faith, early mornings, or simply not enjoying loud rooms. None of that needs explaining to anyone.
What makes it awkward in New York is that “let's get a drink” is the default invitation. It is short, familiar and requires no thought, so it gets suggested even when nobody particularly wants a bar. Replacing that default with an equally easy alternative solves most of the problem.
Formats that work better than a bar
The useful test is whether the setting gives you something to do together and lets you hear each other. Bars often fail the second test regardless of what you are drinking.
- Coffee, late morning or mid-afternoon — short, cheap, easy to end without ceremony.
- Breakfast or brunch, where a long sit is normal and the room is bright.
- Shared dishes — dim sum, hotpot, Korean BBQ, mezze — because ordering and passing food fills the first ten minutes for you.
- Dessert or an ice-cream walk as a second half to something else, or as the whole plan.
- Food halls and market counters, where everyone chooses their own thing and nobody is tracking rounds.
You do not have to announce anything
At a table where the point is the food, ordering a soda, a tea or a lassi passes without comment. If someone does ask, a flat “not tonight” or “I don't drink” is a complete answer and needs no story attached.
Choosing daytime plans also removes the question almost entirely. Nobody wonders why you are not drinking at an 11am dim sum table.
How a shared table handles this by default
A Meal Seed on ToShareAMeal carries an experience type — meal, coffee, dessert or Meet & Greet — plus a stated purpose such as coffee chat or make new friends. That means a non-drinking plan is a normal listing rather than a special request.
Tables are small, a few seats set by whoever planted the Seed, and there are no permanent host or guest roles on an ordinary Meal Seed. The bill approach is agreed by the table in advance, usually everyone paying their own share, so you are never subsidising rounds you did not order.
You can browse open tables on Explore without an account and filter to the kind of meal you actually want.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I have to drink at a ToShareAMeal table?
- No. Nothing about a table requires alcohol, and many Seeds are coffee, brunch or dessert where it never comes up. What you order is your own business.
- Can I find daytime plans rather than evening ones?
- Yes. A Meal Seed carries a date and a rough time, so morning coffee and weekend brunch tables sit alongside dinners on Explore.
- Is this only for people in recovery?
- No. It is for anyone who would rather not build their social life around bars, for whatever reason. No one is asked why, and no reason is displayed anywhere.
Written in response to a question New Yorkers raise repeatedly online — how to socialise without drinking — rather than from any individual account.