Brianda Gonzalez : Founder & CEO of The New Bar

Episode 616

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we’re joined by Brianda Gonzalez, the inspiring Founder and CEO of The New Bar. Brianda’s journey began on Catalina Island, where socializing with family and friends often revolved around alcohol. When her father’s health required him to give up drinking, Brianda set out to create a new way for their family to bond over drinks—without the alcohol. From this, The New Bar was born, a platform that’s redefining social drinking with high-quality, alcohol-free alternatives. In 2022, Brianda opened The New Bar’s first location in Venice Beach, and just a year later, the brand became the first nonalcoholic partner at Coachella and expanded to new locations in West Hollywood and San Francisco.
In our conversation, Brianda shares her experiences building The New Bar, securing major partnerships, and navigating the fast-growing nonalcoholic category. We dive into the shift in consumer attitudes around alcohol, her unique approach to brand building on a lean budget, and how she continues to make The New Bar a fun and accessible choice for all. Whether you’re curious about the rise of nonalcoholic options, entrepreneurship, or innovative brand-building, this episode offers tons of insights and inspiration. Tune in to hear Brianda’s amazing story and learn how The New Bar is transforming the way we connect. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. I’m super, super excited to be joined by my next guest, Brianda Gonzalez, who is the founder and CEO of an incredible business called The New Bar, a unique non alcoholic discovery platform that’s transforming how we enjoy social gatherings without the need for alcohol. And Brianna’s journey is an inspiring one. Growing up in Catalina Island, she saw alcohol as a primary form of socializing until her father’s serious illness. I can’t wait to hear more about that, and determined to keep their family’s connection alive, Briana dove into creating alcohol free ways to bring people together. She is coming to us from Venice Beach. She has three locations, one actually in my favorite city, no offense but San Francisco, on Union Street, not far from the old hint offices. And I can’t wait also to talk about partnerships and some of the various distribution that she’s been able to get, including one of my favorite festivals, Coachella, for sure. And overall, I think she’s just killing it, and I’m so excited to have her here with us today to chat more about her journey and the brand overall. So welcome Brianda,

Brianda Gonzalez 2:08
thank you for having me. It’s such a pleasure.

Kara Goldin 2:11
Very excited. So can you share a bit about the brand, The New Bar? When somebody says, Okay, what is The New Bar? Brianda, what would you say?

Brianda Gonzalez 2:20
Yeah, The New Bar is a curated non alcoholic discovery platform. What we basically do is we curate, we taste test and vet all of the best non alcoholic products from all over the world, and then bring those to consumers. And we do that in a number of ways, but the primary ways that we bring these products to consumers is across our online platform. So e commerce are three physical locations, two in LA and one in San Francisco, and then also in our partnerships and distribution. So we work with entertainment groups, hospitality groups, and all kinds of bars and restaurants to really provide incredible non alcoholic options that everybody can enjoy.

Kara Goldin 3:11
So the name The New Bar. How did you decide to name the company? And, yeah, the brand that

Brianda Gonzalez 3:19
it’s funny. I wish I could say it was this, like, crazy intense thing, but I really knew I wanted to build this brand. I knew that a core, like truly, the core thing about what I was solving for was human connection, changing some minds, and providing amazing non alcoholic alternatives. The market had a ton of innovation and a lot of new products entering it, and some were great and some were not so great. So once I decided I was going to build this, I sat down at the dinner table with my then fiance, now husband, and I just kind of started blurting things out, and he would blurt them out back, and I would check on Instagram if the handle was available, check on godaddy if the URL was available. And we landed on The New Bar, and I loved it, because it’s something that everybody can say. It’s a super accessible name. It speaks to quite literally, what your new bar could look like, but also a higher standard within the non alcoholic category. And so the stars aligned, and I fell in love with it.

Kara Goldin 4:35
What were you doing before starting The New Bar?

Brianda Gonzalez 4:39
Yeah. So I grew up on Catalina Island and worked in hospitality and food and beverage from a super young age. So I started working in restaurants when I was like 12, and then later went on to work as a cocktail waitress once I was 18, and paid my way through college that way. But I actually. Started my career in tech in San Francisco, and I worked in go to market functions at early stage startups that meant, you know, business development, strategic partnerships, partnership marketing and and all of that good stuff. So a lot of my passion for this category came from just my upbringing and understanding of what food and beverage does to bring people together, but so much of the work that I did in my tech roles became super, super helpful in how we’ve built The New Bar and how we think about partnerships and enabling the brands we work with.

Kara Goldin 5:41
So I read the story. I’d love for you to share it, if you’re okay with that. Just growing up, you mentioned that socializing with alcohol was kind of the norm and and then some health struggles hit your family. And so when you think back on that experience, I’ve heard you talk about that’s a lot of why you really wanted to create The New Bar. But can you share a little bit more about that? Yeah,

Brianda Gonzalez 6:11
of course. So I’m originally from Mexico. My family immigrated to the US when I was seven, and we ended up on Catalina Island. It’s basically a tiny island off the coast of California, and Catalina has really one main town. It’s a town of Avalon. It’s one square mile, and within that one square mile there are 16 bars. My dad is a bartender, and so it’s truly how he’s put food on the table my whole life, and it’s the context that I’ve grown up in. So I very much got to see, throughout my whole life, the role that alcohol played in how people celebrated, unwind, how they, you know, cope after a long day of work. And so I grew up in that context. My dad and I are super big foodies, and we’ve always really loved to create and host together. But in 2021 he started getting really sick. We it kind of started during the pandemic. We noticed he had a really strange reaction to COVID, and then all of 2021 he was in and out of the hospital. And he’s a guy that’s like, you know, six foot two, super fit, very active and very healthy, and all of a sudden he’s in and out of the hospital. We can’t figure out what’s going on. We ultimately found out he had an autoimmune illness, and that meant that we had to change a lot of things about our lives, one of which is alcohol. Alcohol is super bad for your immune system. It’s very inflammatory. It weakens your body’s ability to defend itself against any illness, and that’s originally what made me really, really pay attention to the non alcoholic category. My dad was living with me at the time. I was serving as his his caretaker, really. And the thing that we have always enjoyed is is creating food and beverage together. And so I very desperately wanted to preserve that ritual that we shared without hurting his health. And so we started tinkering with, you know, making original cocktail recipes, but maybe just leaving out a spirit, and that wasn’t quite cutting it after a while, so I started experimenting and really dove into this non alcoholic category and uncovered an entire world of options.

Kara Goldin 8:42
So your first location was in Venice Beach on Lincoln Boulevard. Can you talk about those early days when you’re trying to figure out, you’ve decided I’m going to do this, but it’s obviously really scary. I mean, this is not what you’re you haven’t been an entrepreneur. You’ve been supporting other people and companies, and now you’re doing it, and the buck stops with you. Can you talk about, kind of the thinking behind it, and sort of what your concerns were, too?

Brianda Gonzalez 9:19
Yeah, I think when I decided to dive into this full time, I felt that I’ve always, I’ve always thought of myself as a deeply resilient and hard working person. And I think you could ask anybody in my life, and they’ll tell you, whatever I am doing, I am giving 150% of myself too, and so I kind of reached a point where this category was all I could think of, the impact that I saw it had on my life. And my dad felt so profound, and I really felt excited to share that with other people, but I was still pretty terrified. To actually take the leap and leave, you know, what really was a blossoming career in tech, to go and dive into this. Ultimately, I decided, you know, I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to own what I’m building, and I was at a point in my life where, you know, fairly young. I was 27 I had saved up some money from my tech job, and I was in a position where, you know, no kids, I could take the risk. And I felt that if I didn’t do it at that point, I might never take the leap. So I started working on The New Bar full time and pretty immediately. I mean, it was a very lean operation. It was essentially me a couple of contractors that helped me build the website and the LinkedIn location I found on my way home from a yoga class in LA, I just happened to walk by it. I had really been thinking about how important it is to have an in person component to this brand and to this category truly because, you know, as As humans, we connect in person, we imbibe in real life, and we really gather and and share moments around food and beverage. And so I always knew I wanted to have some in person component to this, whether that was pop up bars or events or some sort of physical space. I walked by the store on Lincoln that was for lease. It’s 450 square feet, so a very tiny space. And I just peeped through the front window and I thought, this has great bones. I can probably pull this off. And it felt like a low enough risk from a rent profile perspective, location, lease term, and I could stomach that. I knew that I could pull it off. So it was full steam ahead. It was terrifying every part of the way. And I truly built that first location with my own bare hands, every weekday, every weekend, cleaning it out and making it what it is today.

Kara Goldin 12:24
So, just so people have a visual, those who haven’t visited your locations, you’re not just doing non alcoholic beer or non alcoholic wine. You also have other really unique products. Can you talk a little bit about what people will find there?

Brianda Gonzalez 12:40
Yeah. I mean, I take immense pride in our curation and collection of products. So, you know, in the non alcoholic category, there really is something for pretty much everyone, every thing you can crave, for the most part, has a non alcoholic alternative at this point. And so when you walk into The New Bar, you see wine, beer, spirits, paratieth, even unique kind of liqueurs and glassware, truly anything that that you could desire. And this is, of course, condensed from what is an immensely large number of products and brands in the market. So we’ve taste tested everything, experimented numerous ways with every product that comes across our desks, and we really only pick the things that we feel deeply passionate about. So you walk in, it feels like a really beautiful, bright and cheery kind of boutique liquor store, if you will. But everything is non alcoholic.

Kara Goldin 13:55
I love that. So you launched two more locations and one in San Francisco, as I mentioned, where did you have, kind of the, the know, how, the courage to actually go and launch these other locations? Because it was all pretty quickly. I mean, you guys have grown significantly. There’s many people who would say, you know, stick with your one location and you know, but you didn’t, and you’ve seen significant growth. So how would you respond to that?

Brianda Gonzalez 14:27
Yeah, I mean, it was, it certainly took courage, but we also used a lot of data to guide that decision. We definitely saw a ton of demand from our E commerce side of the business that guided the decision to expand the retail footprint. And even as we’ve expanded, we’ve really, it’s funny, because I think some folks would say, open 100 like, Why are you moving faster? Or, you know, doing more? And we’ve always been really. Be methodical and calculated about the risk that we take with a new location. So in opening our second location in in Los Angeles, we, you know, gathered a bunch of information, not just from our existing customers and where they were traveling from, also a ton of feedback from our social community on on social media, customer surveys, e commerce, and then we basically took all of this data and put it together against the what we know to be true about our demographic, and placed a couple of bets. First it was in in West Hollywood. That was our second location, is our second location and then the third in San Francisco, we just kept seeing such high volume in online sales from that that area and that neighborhood in particular, actually, and that, coupled with Yeah, the community data and social media data, Made us feel bullish enough to take the leap.

Kara Goldin 16:03
So what’s, what’s kind of the most surprising thing you’ve learned about consumer behavior, whether it’s online or the people that are visiting your locations in the non alcoholic space that maybe you didn’t expect when you launch?

Brianda Gonzalez 16:17
Yeah, I think what’s quite interesting about the non alcoholic category is how much discovery truly plays a role. If you think about maybe some alcohol consumption patterns, or, you know, it kind of displays some of the behavior you would maybe expect from a cigarette smoker, you know, somebody finds the gin they like or the beer they like, and the average consumer will kind of stick with that alcoholic brand, maybe even for their lifetime. What I’ve found to be the case in the non alcoholic category is actually kind of closer to maybe a craft beer or a natural Wine Enthusiast type of shopping pattern. So we see customers who, of course, find products that they really love in repurchase, but with really high propensity customers are quite open to trying something different and experimenting within the category, and I think that that’s not necessarily something I expected right away, but it certainly is encouraging and validating for folks like The New Bar and us who are really focusing on facilitating that discovery and Bringing what’s new and exciting to market, and showing that to consumers so that they can continue to become more educated and experienced in this space,

Kara Goldin 17:48
focusing on Discovery. I love, love how you’ve phrased that. How do you get them to know what you’re all about? And I would imagine people are peeking in first, especially, it’s a spot that maybe has not been a traditional bar, right? And you know, so you’re bringing something new to these neighborhoods. But how do you get? How do you you grow? You’ve you’ve grown. I read over 30% per year. Is that correct? Yeah, we

Brianda Gonzalez 18:20
3x our revenue in 2023 and are on track to do the same this year. So that’s amazing. It’s been a wild ride, for sure. That’s

Kara Goldin 18:31
amazing. But how do you build the community and get people continuing to come back? I mean, especially for those you know, building a restaurant is very similar, probably, but how do you get people to know that this is a place that they want to keep coming back for more and more and more?

Brianda Gonzalez 18:51
Yeah, I think for us, you know, we’ve talked about discovery rate, and so there’s always something new and exciting to share with the community, and that’s such an incredible tool for us to keep the conversation going and keep consumers engaged, because there is something different to introduce them to, frequently, what we’ve also had a ton of success with and has been integral to How I’ve built the company from day one, is really having a sense of community and creating events and spaces that people want to show up to. So our physical retail locations, it’s not like your typical, you know, store that you walk in and out of and feel super transactional. Our customers are tasting products every time they come in, so it’s deeply experiential for them, right? So every time you come back, there’s something to look forward to. We have a rotating tasting menu. For example, it’s posted on social. Every week we’re sampling different products. So if you’re a customer and you’re like, Okay, I’ve been curious about this. I’m excited to come back. This is, like, the most baseline thing we do, right? But beyond that, we host happy hours, events, all kinds of classes in the stores, so they truly start to serve as a community hub for our customers. And what we felt is this incredibly engaged, deeply loyal consumer base that sees The New Bar as, of course, a place to come and discover and and learn about new, exciting products that are more likely to be extra delicious, rather than them trying to shop for something that hasn’t been vetted, but they also come to create meaningful relationships with not just our staff, but each other, and so they build a bit of an emotional relationship with the brand that I don’t think is as typical for a space that that can be seen as typical retail.

Kara Goldin 21:02
No, that’s a really, really good point. So launching a brand can come with lots of challenges. For sure, what have you learned about launching your own company that maybe you didn’t know prior to launching your own company. I always tell people, it’s, you know, really, it’s tough. It’s not just about getting the brand and the product or the service right, or the establishment or the real estate in your case, but it’s also the it’s like the little things, it’s the details, it’s the culture, it’s the everything about it. And what have you learned that that maybe you didn’t know prior to actually launching?

Brianda Gonzalez 21:48
There’s so much, and I’m glad I didn’t know so much before I launched. I know people know if you knew the half of it, you might never take the leap. So it’s it’s good that I was naive in some ways, but I think what I’ve truly learned in building this company and and what has been, I wouldn’t necessarily say, surprising, but always worth reflecting on, is just the amount of evolution that you have to undergo on any given day, any given week, a quarter a year, the things that I found challenging on day one are so different from the things that I find challenging today. And so for me, what has been incredibly helpful in getting through every kind of next pivotal moment where I feel that I’m being tested, maybe to the depths of my abilities. I’ve really learned to just kind of build, almost like an evidence file for myself of every time I overcame something that felt insurmountable at the time. And it’s helpful for me to just revisit that and use it truly as evidence to guide the challenge that I’ve never faced, that I’m facing today and feels insurmountable perhaps today, I think that I didn’t realize. I thought, you know, maybe you become a pro at this and it becomes so easy, but you don’t every every day the challenge is different, and so I’ve learned a thing or two about resilience and believing in myself more and more with each challenge. I think the other thing that I perhaps didn’t expect is the amount of context switching and decision fatigue that you can face. I mean, from moment to moment, you know, the the mental rigor required to stay principled and like, really focus on what guides every decision, whether it be from a marketing standpoint or a people internal cultural standpoint, it’s really easy to kind of get disoriented in the process of context switching, and very much learned to lean on, like these guiding principles that I’m kind of a stickler about, and I think my team hears me say over and over and over again, and that’s that’s been really helpful to have. Well,

Kara Goldin 24:32
it’s so key for you too, because, I mean, what you’re touching on too is really the The New Bars mission and kind of the I always tell people, it’s like, you know, you’ve got to put that stick in the ground and hold on to it. Because people will, you know, why don’t you serve alcohol in in your establishment, or whatever it is, right? Like, everyone’s got thoughts and and they’ll throw them out there. And. It’s up to you to make sure that, you know, you remain the North Star, because it’s you’re the ones, especially in the beginning, you’re the one that’s really going to be able to carry that and lead. And I don’t think a lot of people who, you know, they come up with a great idea, and then they’re like, Oh, I’m going to go launch it. But they don’t really think about, you know that they have to really keep saying the same thing and believing it and be that North Star and how critical it is.

Brianda Gonzalez 25:29
Yeah, truly, I think I have always seen myself as a bit of an idealist. And so much about building is compromise, and so much about building is, is finding a middle ground, but I I’ve identified the things that I’m unwilling to compromise on, and I think that that’s been incredibly helpful in in doing exactly what you just said.

Kara Goldin 25:54
One of the things that I love that you’ve done, and I’d love for you to chat a little bit about it, but you have these amazing partnerships with Coachella and stagecoach. And while, you know, some people may say those are a distraction, you’ve actually built this platform, I see it as you’re just expanding your brand right then people are coming back to these cities where you have a location and and obviously, maybe they learned about it at some of these events. But how beneficial has it been for you to do these events?

Brianda Gonzalez 26:36
I mean, it’s been monumental for us. I think What’s brilliant about showing up in these places is that it’s perhaps the places that people least expect non alcoholic alternatives, or even just some better choices to show up and take place. And so when I set out to build a new bar, the idea was really it’s to show people that it’s fun to be good to yourself, and to make those behavioral changes super accessible so anybody can see themselves in The New Bar. Can see themselves in the non alcoholic category. And to me, from day one, I mean, even as The New Bar was like a half baked business idea on paper. Coachella was in there. Coachella 2023 was in there. And my fiance, at the time, thought, you know, maybe I was a little crazy. He was like, What about 2024 and I was like, no, if, if we show up here. Not only is it, I mean validating for The New Bar a great acquisition channel to show people who we are and and to show up in a really splashy way, but it’s it’s just deeply aligned with what we’re trying to do, and that’s to change the conversation and the culture around drinking and what that can look like. And so you have to be willing to show up in spaces that people maybe don’t expect you to. So I’ve grown to see these partnerships as a super powerful part of our ecosystem. Right? We serve consumers and we provide amazing non alcoholic alternatives in moments that they have deep emotional connection to, right? You have great memories at Coachella, and so that’s that’s exactly where I want to meet my customers, where they’re going to build a meaningful and emotional connection to the brand. But the brand partners that are on our shelves, right these actual non alcoholic products that we’re presenting, are also deeply benefiting from having a platform truly to be introduced to the entire market. The non alcoholic category is, you know, is rapidly growing. It’s, I’m so bullish on it. It’s going to be such a significant part of beverage as a whole. But it’s still comprised of smaller players who maybe wouldn’t be able to show up in these spaces if they didn’t have a collective kind of house that provided that platform. So I’m very, very grateful for the partnerships. I think it’s totally validated the category, the brands that we work with, and then also been really helpful in landing us other partnerships with entertainment groups, hospitality groups and other folks who are, you know, hoping to build their non alcoholic programs, but are looking for a data driven way to do that, and now we have a great understanding of how these products perform across all those contexts.

Kara Goldin 29:38
Do you think you’ll ever do your own product,

Brianda Gonzalez 29:40
yes, yeah, I would love, yeah, yeah, very,

Kara Goldin 29:44
very cool. So I could see that in your future for sure. So you’ve done such a terrific job curating and and growing what you have. So congratulations, Briana and everybody will have all. The info in the show notes, definitely go to The New Bar locations. Go to their website site too. But congratulations on everything. I love hearing and reading about your business and so so cool. So thank you again, Briana, and thanks everyone for listening.

Brianda Gonzalez 30:18
Thank you for having me.

Kara Goldin 30:20
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now you.

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