Meet the owner of Dream House Lounge, New Orleans' zero-proof cocktail space
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David Wallace owns Dream House Lounge in New Orleans. Photo: Courtesy of David Wallace
New Orleans may be home to one of the most vibrant cocktail cultures in the world, but the trend of offering nonalcoholic drinks beyond the kids' menu is expanding here, too.
- After opening Dream House Lounge in July 2022, owner David Wallace has fully tapped into — and helped grow — an emerging wellness scene in the city.
Who dat: Wallace is the brain behind Dream House Lounge, a sophisticated cool space offering zero-proof cocktails and an oxygen bar in the Central Business District.
Where he went to school: Wallace moved to New Orleans in 2019 to serve as a local leader for a private graduate school, but he left that role in July 2021 and began conceptualizing Dream House.
- "I was just like, 'I can’t do this anymore.' I did really great, mission-critical work, but I didn’t always have the space to take care of my mental health … and tend to my spiritual wellness.”
It started with a dream: “Most of the big things in my life, they’ve come to me in dreams, so … I dreamt about … a mental and spiritual wellness lounge that would allow people to tend to their mental health, tend to their spiritual well-being.”
Banning the booze: Alcohol, which is naturally a depressant, seemed like a logical thing to remove from the equation for the lounge, Wallace says. But replacing it meant re-education, too.
- “We started introducing new terminologies, like conscious cocktails and sophisticated sips and zero-proof beverages and sober curious, sober conscious — downloading the city with these concepts I had researched."
- “I hate the word 'mocktail' because it sounds like you’re making a mockery of something. But no, you can have … a sophisticated, complex, well-thought-out beverage, and it not be alcohol-based.”
RIP to Blue Giant: David’s favorite special occasion restaurant, Blue Giant, closed unexpectedly this year. “I haven’t found a new fave yet,” he says.
His poboy order: “Fat Boy Pantry’s lobster poboy. Sometimes I cheat and add a little bacon to it, and it’s divine.”
David’s drink of choice: “Lavender Dreams. … I created that drink randomly for a Thanksgiving cocktail, and it’s become the top-seller since we opened.”