Alcohol-free bottle shop Killjoy is moving to a new spot in town. The spot, currently located in Wedgewood-Houston at 2020 Lindell Avenue, will be moving to 1100 Fatherland St. this month.
The previous location will close Sept. 7. Owner Stephanie Styll expects a quick turnaround, with plans to open the new space on Sept. 10. However, they will still be building out the space for the following month or so.
Killjoy offers non-alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine, spirits and functional beverages, to customers.
Styll originally opened the spot in Wedgewood-Houston after her own journey with alcohol.
“I quit drinking at the end of 2020 after drinking too much in 2020 like a lot of people did,” Styll said. “And then when I started socializing again, I really missed the experience and the ritual of drinking an adult beverage. But I didn’t want to drink alcohol, so I started learning about all of the alcohol alternatives and there were so many good ones, and the market for those is booming.”
However, Styll found that it was difficult to find non-alcoholic beverages, and it was even more challenging to find people knowledgeable about the products.
“I kept wishing there was a place where you could go that had all these drinks in one place where people were knowledgeable about them and where you could taste them,” Styll said. “After wishing that for a while, I decided to do it.”
The planned change in location is inspired by the need to expand the brand. The Wedgewood-Houston space was too small for the growing company.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff crammed into a little space,” Styll said. “It was a starter space from the beginning. It was a chance to test the concept and see how Nashville adapted to non-alcoholic drinks, and it’s been wonderful. So I’ve been looking for a bigger space for us for a long time.”
The concept that Styll and her team have planned for the new space is an expansion of the current concept. She plans to offer space for customers to hang out and enjoy cold beverages on-site, even teasing a potential bar concept with non-alcoholic beers and kombuchas on draft.
“We’ve had a lot of customers coming to us from East Nashville and saying [they] wish [we] were over there,” Styll said. “We’ve also been doing a lot of collabs with local businesses since we opened and there’s just so many that are going to be right near us. Building community from that space is going to be much easier.”
