Downtown Durham's Newest Bars Are Designed to Hold Your Attention

Below Bar Virgile on South Mangum Street, the pink neon is gone. In its place are carpet, sound panels on the walls and ceiling, sapele wood, black walnut and lamps chosen to feel like a library. A turntable plays an album from the first track to the last. The room has five tables, a row of barstools and a lounge of plush couches and swivel chairs. Two records fill about 90 minutes.

That is Saint Mars, and it is one of three downtown Durham bars that opened in 2026 with the same unusual goal. None of them has a published rule against phones or laptops. They rely on the build-out to keep screens in the background. Soif does it with a 13-seat room that has no Wi-Fi. Red Phone Booth makes you dial a rotary phone to get in. The way these rooms are built shapes a night out more than the menus do.

Saint Mars uses carpet where other bars would post a sign

Daniel Sartain, who owns Bar Virgile, opened Saint Mars in the former Annexe space after that bar closed following six years of tiki drinks and neon. In an interview with The News & Observer, Sartain said "the whole pink and green neonish vibe of the 90s and late 80s is gone." The paper reported he hopes glowing phone screens will be rare and that people will spend time with the space and each other.

The design does the work. The floor was carpeted, and sound panels and clouds went onto the walls and ceiling so the room would wrap guests in the music. Records play all the way through, drawn from Sartain's collection of about 1,000. His description of an evening shows the idea clearly: "If someone stops in for 90 minutes, they'll hear two records in their entirety, there will be conversation pieces, some deep tracks, some dead air," he told the N&O. "We need to rethink this whole instant gratification thing."

The name has a story. WRAL reported that seven years ago Sartain promised he would make Saint Mars real one day. Co-owner Nellie Vail led the design and suggested the library feel. The flip from Annexe took about five weeks.

The drinks match the slower pace. The N&O reported a menu of stiff sippers like a Black Manhattan and a Martini served with olives, almonds and giardiniera, with snacks from Bar Virgile upstairs. Records range from jazz and old-school hip-hop to indie rock and electronica, and a night might pair two records, such as Bob Seger on one turntable and Tom Petty on the other.

Saint Mars has also started running ticketed listening nights. On October 7, Downtown Durham Inc. listed The Negroni Sessions at $15. The ticket included a welcome cocktail, and the record went on at 6:45 p.m. while guests tried Negroni variations. That event has passed, but it gives a good idea of what future nights there may look like.

Soif runs the same idea in daylight

Saint Mars is a room for long evenings. Soif, two blocks of downtown away in the lobby of the 1930s art deco Snow Building at 331 W. Main St., uses a similar approach starting at 8 a.m. Jesse Gerstl, who also owns Delafia on Foster Street, opened it March 11. Hey Durham reported 13 seats, no Wi-Fi and no laptop tables.

INDY Week explained that the missing Wi-Fi comes from the room's size. In a space that narrow, setting up a laptop "might feel like projecting a presentation to the room." There is no register at one end and pickup counter at the other. You order from the bartender and stay where you are, reading the newspaper or talking to the person beside you. Gerstl told INDY that the usual American coffee-shop line "doesn't create the atmosphere for, like, 'let's share this morning ritual together.'"

The room is also built around a low price. Forbes reported in August that an espresso at Soif costs $2.50, and that a shot costs Gerstl 48 cents before staffing. He keeps about two dollars from each espresso. About 100 people come through the door each day, and the coffee breaks even. The evening bar and a single bartender in a very small room carry the business. "I am dead set on not changing this and on keeping it this way," Gerstl told Forbes.

In the evening, Soif serves aperitivo. Forbes described a list built on low-ABV and non-alcoholic drinks, plus three classics poured in half sizes. A half Negroni costs $7. INDY reported low-ABV drinks built around sherry and vermouth, a Manhattan, a Negroni and a Martini, and a wine list of one white, one red and one sparkling. On why the small room matters, Gerstl told Forbes, "It's very intentional that a small space requires you to share conversations, requires you to share connections."

The Saint Mars hours come from Durham Magazine's October/November 2026 issue. The Soif hours come from Hey Durham's listing, last updated in May. Both are worth checking before you go.

Red Phone Booth turns the phone into the door

The third opening approaches the phone from the opposite side. At Red Phone Booth, a restored London phone booth is the entrance, and getting in means entering a code on a rotary phone. Durham Magazine reported that it opened Aug. 14, bringing an Atlanta-born concept that also runs locations in Nashville, Dallas, Miami and Tampa. In a Substack review titled "Inside Red Phone Booth Durham", a writer who attended the Aug. 12 soft opening described dialing a code and watching a hidden panel release, and reported that later visits would also require the code.

Inside is a cigar lounge and cocktail bar with high-backed Italian leather seating, hand-painted ceilings and a honey onyx bar. There is a climate-controlled cedar humidor. Smoking is allowed, and Durham Magazine reported air scrubbers that cycle the room's air more than 30 times an hour. The food side pairs classic and house cocktails, made with fresh-squeezed juice and hand-chipped ice, with Neapolitan-style pizza and Italian-inspired small plates.

Two Durham residents, Dr. Michael A. Thomas and Dr. Ralph K. Mensah, brought the concept here. "I first experienced the Red Phone Booth in Nashville and was immediately struck by the exceptional bourbon selection and authentic prohibition-style decor," Mensah said in an announcement covered by FSR magazine. The same announcement described a nearly 100-seat lounge with two full-service bars and a private event space. It also said membership is not required for a single night out. Members get priority entry and preferred seating.

Red Phone Booth is the largest of the three rooms, and it still slows people down at the door. Saint Mars uses its records to set the pace of a visit. Soif uses its size. At Red Phone Booth, the slowdown happens before you are inside, when you dial a number on a phone that has no screen.

One evening, three rooms

These three openings are within walking distance of one another, so they fit together into a single downtown evening:

1. Late afternoon at Soif. Stand at the marble counter for a $7 half Negroni or a low-ABV aperitivo.
2. Two records at Saint Mars. Doors open at 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Sit through one full album, then another, with a Black Manhattan and snacks from Bar Virgile upstairs.
3. A late stop at Red Phone Booth. Finish on West Orange Street with a classic cocktail and a pizza, once you have the code.

The next set of openings shows the same interest in slower food and drink. Durham Magazine reports that Little Waves Coffee Roasters plans to open a 5,100-square-foot roastery in late fall on East Pettigrew Street near North Alston Avenue. The company started as bikeCoffee, a mobile cart that worked in that same area, and the roastery will host seated cuppings by reservation once production is fully running. Melao, a Colombian bistro from Sebastian Salinas, Diego Baron and Miguel Cantor, is planned for 810 N. Mangum St. in the former Little Bull space. Salinas told The News & Observer the goal is "a good dinner and good cocktails, but do something affordable." In spring 2027, Durham native Alex Catotti and pastry chef Erin Kobler plan to open Restaurant Cornelia, a seasonal tasting-menu restaurant, at 949 Washington St. Next to it will be The Vintner & The Baker, a bakery and coffee shop by day that becomes a wine bar at night.

At The Sheri Hagerty Group, we follow downtown Durham's openings as closely as its listings, because the places within walking distance of a home are part of how people value it. If you live close to these blocks and would like to know what that means for your home's value today, ask us for a free home valuation.