{"id":159166,"date":"2026-02-01T14:39:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/159166\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T14:39:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:39:23","slug":"booze-shots-are-out-cheekies-are-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/159166\/","title":{"rendered":"Booze shots are out. Cheekies are in"},"content":{"rendered":"

A small pour of mezcal greets many patrons at Chicano Nuevo (opens in new tab)<\/a>, a pop-up turned restaurant in Bernal Heights, landing on the bar practically before customers sit down. For co-owner Abraham Nu\u00f1ez, giving away an ounce of artisanal Divino Maguey in a small cup, or copita, is a ritual of welcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle, tiny half-shots of something \u2014 even a half ounce of mezcal \u2014 are a way to say, \u2018Hey, I like you,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a sign of affection or affinity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although they\u2019re often (but not always) thrown back in one sip, these celebratory little pours aren\u2019t shots; they\u2019re cheekies. And in post-pandemic San Francisco, they\u2019re another sign of a shift away from hard partying<\/a> toward more mature drinking habits. Think of the cheeky as a shot that grew up, less a vehicle for intoxication than a gesture of camaraderie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An only-in-San Francisco origin story<\/p>\n

Accounts differ on just how and where the cheeky originated. Some bar pros say the trend started in Latin America, with \u201ccheeky\u201d an anglicized version of \u201cchiquito,\u201d Spanish for \u201clittle.\u201d That\u2019s how Nu\u00f1ez, a longtime fixture in the San Francisco bar scene, sees it \u2014 and he spells it \u201cchiqui.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

At Lol\u00f3 (opens in new tab)<\/a>, a Jaliscan-Californian restaurant that may pour 80 cheekies of mezcal on a busy night, co-owner and Guadalajara native Leon Vazquez believes Nu\u00f1ez might have it backward. \u201cThe first time I heard about it was when I moved [to the states],\u201d Vazquez says. He suggests that Americans who travel and buy second homes in Mexico introduced the cheeky to his native country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brian Sheehy, CEO of Future Bars (opens in new tab)<\/a> \u2014 the group that operates a dozen San Francisco nightlife spots, including Bourbon & Branch, Pagan Idol, and Long Weekend \u2014 claims that cheekies actually came from his own bar. Shortly after Bourbon & Branch made its splashy 2006 debut, bartenders from the nearby Irish Bank would offer the staff little nips of Fernet as a professional courtesy. They returned the favor, and a culture of reciprocity developed. The cheeky was born.<\/p>\n

At first, Sheehy chalked this a tacit form of employee theft up to another cost of doing business in San Francisco. \u201cIt was fine in the 2000s when it was Fernet, which was inexpensive,\u201d he says. But soon his staff alighted upon mezcal, a pricier, niche product at the time. Their use of copitas \u2014 which, because they\u2019re made of ceramic, are opaque \u2014 disguised what everyone was doing.<\/p>\n

\"ABraulio Ponce, bartender at Lol\u00f3, pours a round of mezcal cheekies.<\/p>\n

Within a month, the real cost of the cheeky explosion showed up in the accounting. \u201cWe had paid for two cases of mezcal but only charged for two bottles,\u201d Sheehy recalls. He did his best to rein in this low-level embezzlement. In return, some employees took to calling cheekies \u201cSheehys.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the genie was out of the 1.75-liter bottle. Two decades on, Sheehy has found peace with the practice \u2014 which is no longer solely his problem. \u201cIt\u2019s a neat thing that could only start in San Francisco,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I should have free cheekies at any bar I go to for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

One rule: You have to toast it\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Colleen Downey of Trick Dog (opens in new tab)<\/a>, cheekies are the new \u201cbartender\u2019s handshake,\u201d eating into the dominance of the Fernet shot.<\/p>\n

Cheekies can be any kind of spirit; there are almost no rules over what is suitable. Mezcal and lower-proof amaros are the most common, but tequila and even vodka aren\u2019t unheard of. Strictly speaking, they don\u2019t have to contain alcohol at all. \u201cI don\u2019t care what it is,\u201d says Gillian Fitzgerald of Irish bar Casements (opens in new tab)<\/a>. \u201cAnyone who\u2019s not drinking can still have a cheeky of ginger beer or soda water. It doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

They can even become foundational to a place\u2019s identity. At Lillie Coit\u2019s (opens in new tab)<\/a>, a new North Beach hangout that does a brisk late-night business<\/a>, owner Nick Floulis offers \u201cwelcome splashes\u201d of sparkling wine and cheekies of Montenegro, an approachable, sweet-tasting amaro, to almost everyone. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018We don\u2019t do shots around here. This is a cheeky,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to drink it, but you do have to toast it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

All four wells at Lillie Coit\u2019s wraparound bar are stocked with a bottle of Montenegro, Floulis says. On Saturday nights, they\u2019ll go through six or more 1-liter bottles. \u201cI refuse to send a cheeky out in a nonfrozen glass,\u201d he says, adding that the Formica bar top allows him to frictionlessly slide one toward patrons. \u201cIt\u2019s our little gift across the bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apart from their diminutive size, cheekies\u2019 other defining characteristic is that they must be offered by staff. If customers try to order one, they\u2019re effectively wheedling free booze \u2014 a cheeky move, indeed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tallboy, a \u201cmartini dive bar<\/a>\u201d in Oakland\u2019s Temescal neighborhood, found a workaround: selling cheekies for $3 each. A section of its menu (opens in new tab)<\/a> comprises six chilled, 1-ounce mini-cocktails \u2014 including a Fernet-and-Coke and a \u201cteeny-tini\u201d \u2014 kept in a top-loading freezer for easy access.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a cheeky is really doing its best, it\u2019s turning something on its ear a little bit,\u201d owner Den Stephens says. \u201cIt has to be fun.\u201d He wanted something crafted by the house to demonstrate execution and technique, but without making people commit to a full cocktail. A cheeky, he says, is \u201ca petite little moment: an \u2018amuse-booze.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small pour of mezcal greets many patrons at Chicano Nuevo (opens in new tab), a pop-up turned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[8697,416,35067,2399,6512,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-159166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bars","tag-cocktails","tag-eat-here","tag-mission-district","tag-north-beach","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}