We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mi-Ya Mata. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mi-Ya below.

Hi Mi-Ya, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Dry Spokes’ seed was planted after I (Mi-Ya) heard an NPR interview about Sans Bar. That interview was in the back of my mind for some time until late 2019 when I started to research non-alcoholic beer options. I found some groups on social media where people talked about the non-alcoholic options they had tried. I initially ordered some NA beers to try which then led to me researching NA spirits. While I was researching NA spirits, I also found cocktail channels on Youtube, where I watched and learned techniques for cocktail creation. I ordered some NA spirits to taste and use while dabbling in cocktail creation. Honestly, I did not enjoy everything I ordered. But I slowly introduced NA options to my coworkers at the time. When I got back, my wife Leah encouraged me to keep making cocktails with the goal to open a business. We had pretty much stopped drinking at this point, Leah never being a fan of the taste of alcohol, and me just not enjoying recovering the next day. As we decided to move forward with the business we thought about our why. We thought about how engrained alcohol was in our social culture. We met playing rugby where alcohol is very prevalent, Mi-Ya is also active-duty military where alcohol is known to be seen. We had a friend who stopped drinking but had never really thought about how she did not have a place to go that was adult-focused and alcohol-free. While COVID was beginning to wind down, Mi-Ya and Leah launched Dry Spokes. Dry for the non-alcoholic name and Spokes because of Leah’s involvement with cycling. Leah had always enjoyed riding bikes, but it became her main way of getting exercise after breaking her ankle while playing rugby. Trust me, getting to the name Dry Spokes was an adventure in itself. Once we settled on the name, I went on the hunt for a bicycle cart, logo design, and licensing and permit requirements. I reached out to friends who were starting businesses of their own to get advice. One was a friend who started his own bean-to-bar chocolate business, another was our neighbor who has literally done everything, one was a coworker whose partner was starting a new business, and the list goes on and on. Leah’s community connections pointed us in the right direction for finding a kitchen to rent out and locations for our first events. At first, Dry Spokes was going to be a retail location for non-alcoholic spirits but realizing not everyone wanted to go through the adventure of trying unknown spirits, we came up with cocktails to introduce them to the public. We quickly realized people wanted cocktails and the bottles were a bonus. After working with the Entrepreneurial Clinic out of UNL to ensure we had our licensing, permits, and LLC formed, we started to offer drink service for hire. That led us to work with people all over Nebraska. As we were going to different parts of the state and attending different markets and fairs, there was always one question that came up that we had to answer no. It was do we have a location? After not liking having to answer no, we started to search for a brick-and-mortar location. The process was long and tedious since we were not finding the locations that seemed to fit our vision for Dry Spokes. That was until late in 2022 when we were searching for spaces in the downtown Omaha area and stopped in a coffee shop. We had been to that coffee shop before and the owner is very involved in the neighborhood after hearing the idea, recommended that we check out a bar around the corner. We took down the address and continued on to the next location we were scheduled to look at for our possible retail and e-commerce operation. We decided to just drive by and check out the location that was suggested. We looked in the window and immediately fell in love, and contacted the landlords. Originally, the landlords were looking for a more experienced and traditional bar and restaurant business to go in but after hearing our concept they became excited as they also rode bikes and did not consume much alcohol. They approved us after a second round of interviews and we began the hunt for launching Dry Spokes the brick and mortar. We have craft non-alcoholic cocktails, a small retail bottle shop, and an event side connected to a patio. Dry Spokes is a community hub where anyone can come in and have a craft cocktail, that just happens to be alcohol-free.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Leah has a background in the hospitality industry. She was a server for many years before she went into her interpreting full-time. Her interpreting allowed her to see many aspects of the community. I’m active-duty military and am fortunate enough to have a supportive wife who enables my creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. The cocktails we serve are not virgin and not the traditional ‘mocktail’ that most people think of when they hear alcohol-free. Because I follow mixologists on various social media platforms, I learned that each drink must be balanced. Up until recently, most alcohol-free options were either a soda, some sort of juice concoction, or a mixture of high-sugar syrupy drinks, but we wanted to do something more because we earnestly believe that you should not have to sacrifice your social life because you do not consume alcohol. Even now with the non-alcoholic options growing those who do not consume alcohol are still not at the forefront. For example, non-alcoholic spirits may be buried with alcoholic ones or they may be in the back of a liquor store. If a liquor store does carry them, it is more common that the attendant does not know that it is carried, let alone how the product is made and where it is from as they would with alcoholic spirits. We research each product we carry and try them so when someone comes in they can ask questions and we can give them informed recommendations. We recognize that the options now can be overwhelming for someone so we want to make sure we have not only our opinions and information but of others who have tried the products as well. For our cocktails, each one is crafted so it is more than a juice and syrup mixture. The environment is mature and therefore our drinks must be as well. We have some that utilize non-alcohol spirits, meant to replicate alcoholic ones, as their base, and others that are completely unique and are just interesting. We also have some cocktails that are not spirits based at all but are still delicious and interesting.

We’re creating an environment that allows for social equality for people who are not consuming alcohol. It could be that they just want to gap that night but still want to be social or for a more extended time frame but either way, they know that when they come in the drinks will be good and there won’t be alcohol in them because we just want you to enjoy the time with yourself, your friends, and with us. The proudest we get is when we craft a drink and the person we are making it for watches us, and their eyes light up because we are taking the time to create a drink for them. The pride is split between the customers who do not drink and are no longer an afterthought when they come in and those who still consume alcohol and take their first sip and are pleasantly surprised.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Awareness and authenticity. Though every leader is not perfect, every leader should strive to be authentic with the people on their team and be aware of their actions, shortfalls, and statements and the impact it has on their team. When I say shortfalls and their impacts, we’re talking about both the negative and positive. The negative impacts seem more easily identifiable so I’ll talk about the positive ones. No one person can be an expert in all things, but in case there is someone like that I’ll say I know that I cannot be an expert in all things. What I can do is make sure the team we have has various talents and expertise that they bring to the team. This not only ensures everyone is valued but maintains everyone having awareness of the different strengths of the team. Not everyone will be perfect, and it is on the leader to be authentic when it comes to things not going right or meeting expectations. And if it’s the leader themselves, then being authentic with themselves on what they can do better to enable the team to be the best. When the team is at its best then the business can be at its best also.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My cofounder/business partner is also my wife. We met in 2015 while playing on the Omaha Women’s rugby team. We were friends for a couple of years before we started to date. We got married in 2019 and Leah knew I had an entrepreneurial spirit because she put it in our vows that she would support those ideas. We had no idea that Dry Spokes was on the horizon. As I started my research, Leah followed the industry as well and even coordinated a non-alcoholic road trip before COVID came up. Though we were not able to do that trip, yet, she still started reaching out to her community contacts to find places for us to launch and figure out if Omaha wanted/needed non-alcoholic options. She supported us so much that we agreed to be a single-car household so we could get some capital to get started. This was also while she was pregnant as a surrogate for a friend of ours. She is the lead communicator on our social media and emails and is the all-around organized one. Dry Spokes would not be where it is today without her.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dryspokes.com
• Instagram: @dryspokes
• Facebook: Dry Spokes
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dry-spokes-omaha?osq=dry+spokes

Image Credits
The picture of our Cranberry Spiced Mule was taken by Jenna Hazel of Hazel Haus and everything else was taken by us.