Inside Riyadh’s Pub With No Alcohol

A new alcohol-free “pub-style” café in Riyadh is drawing crowds by offering Saudis the thrill of drinking draft beer without breaking any laws, or waking up with a headache.

Inside A12 café, customers in traditional thobes and black veils sip 0.0% German beer from frosty mugs, snap videos for social media, and joke nervously about whether they’re doing something illegal.

The quirky scene reflects the cultural shifts happening in Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, where cinemas, concerts, and tourism are expanding, but alcohol remains firmly off-limits.

Despite booze being banned since 1952, the café has gone viral for delivering a playful, pub-like experience in a country where drinking is still taboo.

With football on TV, peanuts on tables, and draft beer that tastes real but behaves legally, A12 has become a symbol of how far the kingdom’s social landscape is evolving, while still keeping one very strict red line.