Popular bayside venue, Tolerance Cuisine, transforms into alcohol free bar

Meet the business owners who has revolutionised a popular bayside venue into the area’s first ever alcohol-free bar.

Beer, cocktails and spirits are all on the menu but two business owners have gone out on a limb opening a bar of a different kind.

Anri De Jager and her partner, Cassandra, were on the brink of selling their Wynnum restaurant and bar Tolerance Cuisine earlier this year following a tough period for the hospitality industry.

But instead the couple have decided to turn the venue into the bayside suburb’s first ever dry bar with alcohol-free everything.

Tolerance Cuisine owner Anri De Jager making an alcohol-free drink.

“Cassandra and I have been together for five years, five very tumultuous, difficult, and sad years and times where we thought we are just about ready to give up but then we rise in the face of adversity, we take a challenge and turn it into a goal,” Ms De Jager said.

“We both have very different backgrounds, she is a chef by trade and I’m a lawyer.

“This combination has allowed us to take our part in the business as individuals, in the kitchen and front of house respectively.

Inside Tolerance Cuisine which has been transformed into an alcohol free bar.

“We are always looking for a revolution, and I believe we may have just found ourselves another one with our dry bar.

“We don’t drink, for personal reasons, and we have decided that we’d like to give other people like us an opportunity to still enjoy the idea of drinking and socialising, without the dirty old side effects of alcohol, it definitely creates a placebo effect.”

Some of the alcohol-free drinks available at Tolerance Cuisine.

The venue, which was called Tolerance by the couple after the journey they took to get where they are today, opened in Wynnum three years ago but only launched their new alcohol-free menu this week.

And it may be the perfect time for the couple to relaunch with several new flashy bars and restaurants recently opening in the area as well as the bayside experiencing a development and retail boom.

Inside Tolerance Cuisine which has been transformed into an alcohol-free bar.

“We offer the full range of the award-winning Lyre’s Spirits, which include flavours of gin, dark, light, and spiced rum, whiskey, aperitifs, and amaretti, as well as Absinthe and Seedlips Vodka,” Ms De Jager said.

“We also offer alcohol free beer, Peroni and Heineken, as well as Edenvale’s Cab Sauv, and Sauv Blanc.”

The venue is located at 182 Bay Tce, Wynnum.