After Dark SG — Late Nights for the Sober Curious

How it was curated

Where the list came from

Venues came from firsthand knowledge, recommendations, and a lot of searching by category and region. To make the list, a venue had to open late and have sober options.

Information was checked against Google Places before it went live

Before anything was published, it went through the Places API. A places:searchText call on the name and address confirmed the business existed, and checked its name and address against what was going into the directory. It also returned a place_id. If something did not match, or nothing came up, it was checked by hand.

Additional details such as closing time, price tier, free or paid, and website were checked against the venue's own site or listed hours.

This step caught real mismatches too. A Places lookup once matched the wrong branch of a chain, and it was corrected by hand.

Rounds

New batches went through the same lookup script, in numbered rounds, e.g., round 1, round 2, round 3. Venues that were shut down, or stopped fitting the list, were marked gone and stayed on the record with a note about what changed.

What to order, and where that came from

Every card suggested something to order. That came from one web search per venue: the name, the location, and a term like mocktail or signature drink. Results came mostly from food blogs, Daniel Food Diary, EatBook, Burpple, sethlui.com, plus the venue's own site if it had one. If nothing specific turned up, the card just said to ask for their zero-proof or non-alcoholic pick, and it was flagged for review in the next round.

This was one search per venue, not a person checking each source, so it could carry whatever was out of date in the blogs it pulled from. A venue was once named from an old post after it had actually closed. Suggestions were treated as a first pass, and anything that mattered was checked against the venue's own site.