PHILANTHROPIC ORGANIZATION BROOKLYN Org announced the launch of its new visiting scholar program and named Dr. Christina Greer as the first.

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When the World Trade Center was struck, the firefighter was in Brooklyn, on loan to another station, rather than at his usual post.

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A Planet Fitness formerly occupied the spot, which is being developed into a 30-story mixed-use tower, according to New York YIMBY.

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A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the John Dewey Middle School Annex was held at 106 Avenue X, Sept. 8. 

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A 77-YEAR-OLD MAN riding a stand-up scooter in the Schermerhorn Street bike lane near Smith Street in Boerum Hill died Monday.

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The court case challenging Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn’s proposed bylaw changes is awaiting a ruling.

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A year after opening its doors in Greenpoint, Soft Bar + Cafe is becoming less about the reality-TV star whose name helped put it on the map and more about the team behind the alcohol-free experience.

When Soft Bar + Cafe opened in September 2025, the concept quickly drew attention as the latest venture from “Summer House” star Carl Radke. But one year later, Radke is the first to acknowledge that the business could not have become what it is without the people bringing its food, coffee and beverage programs to life.

“I never worked at a bar. I just drank at them,” Radke said. “So it was important to me to build my company with really amazing professional people and experts in their background.”

Among those experts are beverage director Richie Millwater and director of coffee and tea Antonia Petaccio, whose experience in hospitality and specialty beverages has helped shape Soft Bar well beyond its celebrity connection.

Radke said Millwater and Petaccio were among the first people he began working with on the concept.

“They’re artists, they’re creators,” Radke told Brooklyn Paper. “They’ve come up with recipes and really helped me build the menus and the ingredients that we use.”

For Radke, that distinction is important.

“My baristas, my bartenders and my event coordinator; I would be nothing without these people, because Soft Bar is not just Carl. It is an entire group. It is a community. It’s a brand,” he said. “I’ve had team members that have had their fingerprints and footprints all over this business. It’s not just me.”

From Eleven Madison Park to Soft Bar

For Millwater, the idea behind Soft Bar struck a personal and professional chord.

At the time, Millwater was working as head bartender at the Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park when he first heard about Radke’s plans for a nonalcoholic sports bar. His wife was watching “Summer House,” and Millwater overheard Radke discussing the venture.

“I was like, ‘That sounds like a great idea. Let me see how many non-alcoholic bars there are in New York City,’” Millwater told Brooklyn Paper.

He discovered there was only one.

“How is this market untapped? How is there only one in New York City?” he recalled thinking.

Millwater’s experience had already shown him there was an audience for sophisticated alcohol-free drinks. At Eleven Madison Park, he said, the restaurant offered nonalcoholic pairings and seven nonalcoholic cocktails alongside its regular cocktail menu.

“I just had a lot of passion for the non-alcoholic space,” he said.

That passion ultimately led him to reach out to Radke. Millwater said his wife encouraged him to send a direct message, and Radke responded before the “Summer House” episode he was watching had even ended.

The two eventually connected, and Radke visited Millwater at Eleven Madison Park to try his drinks.

“Two months later he came, had all the drinks, was blown away, and here we are two and a half years later,” Millwater said.

At the center of cocktail alchemist’s philosophy is the idea that going without alcohol shouldn’t mean receiving a lesser experience.

“One of our sayings was, ‘Just because you don’t drink doesn’t mean you deserve a lesser experience,’” he said.

That philosophy extends beyond people who never drink. Millwater pointed to “zebra striping,” or alternating alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks throughout a night, as another reason spaces like Soft Bar can appeal to a broader audience.

“I think New Yorkers don’t want to be in our small little apartments want to be out,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we all have work in the morning, and we want to be able to go to places that have intention.”

For Millwater, Soft Bar offers a way to have that night out while still feeling good the next day.

“This is a place that I’m super proud of because I would be proud to come here as a consumer, enjoy the drinks, feel better too,” he said. “Our drinks have benefits in them, so you feel better after you walk out of here, and you know you can conquer the next day.”

Building something beyond the bar

The first months at Soft Bar were about finding the concept’s footing. Millwater said the team knew there were techniques and ideas they wanted to explore, but needed time to develop them.

“I’ve always was telling the team, once when we get our footing after opening and we’re able to do these cool stuff, we will do these cool stuff,” he said.

About six months in, he said, the leadership team — including Petaccio, Audrey and Mick — was able to push those ideas further.

Today, that means experimenting with fermentation, using waste from the kitchen and developing ingredients in-house.

“We’re doing a lot of lacto fermentation with a lot of the waste that we have,” Millwater said. “We’re doing a miso that we’re making in house. It’s a hazelnut peach miso, something that I’m known for doing at Eleven Madison Park and Clemente Bar, but we’re putting it in non-alcoholic cocktails.”

The team also uses a technique that allows them to clarify acidified juice with orgeat instead of dairy.

“That’s a way to clarify something without dairy, without milk, which gives it that silky, nutty flavors, but without using those kind of ingredients,” Millwater said.

He said reaching that point is one of the biggest accomplishments of Soft Bar’s first year.

“To figure out who we are, what we’re doing, what makes sense to the space in the area, and what our guests really want in Brooklyn and in Greenpoint is, I think, something really special, and I’m really proud of,” he said.

A coffee program with its own identity

Petaccio has been working on another major piece of that identity: Soft Bar’s coffee program.

“I want to say I’m our director of coffee, but I do a lot of things here,” Petaccio said. “I started off as our director of coffee and tea here at Soft Bar, and now I kind of do everything from the concept level — a lot of the creative, a lot of the coffee programming and a lot of the culinary programming, too.”

Her goal was to make the coffee program approachable while still giving serious coffee drinkers something worth seeking out.

“I really wanted to set us apart by creating a coffee program that felt really approachable for New Yorkers,” she said.

Petaccio noted that Brooklyn already has a deep coffee culture, making it important for Soft Bar to find its own lane.

“For me, I really wanted to cater to the true coffee aficionados, and have a really strong, solid specialty coffee program that worked for both standard coffee drinkers and then maybe people who are looking for something alternative or a caffeine alternative that they might not get at their everyday cafe,” she said.

That same philosophy carries into the culinary side of the business.

Petaccio said her approach is rooted in transparency, seasonality and sustainability — values she traces back to her family’s roots in northern Italy.

“My family’s from northern Italy, and we really only eat in season, not just because that’s what’s trendy, but because that was what was available,” she said.

She added that working seasonally is about more than following food trends.

“I think for me, being seasonally inspired goes longer than just being inspired by it. It’s also a sustainability model to some extent,” she said.

That means embracing ingredients at their peak and moving on when their season ends.

“It’s a lot of celebrating what’s in season when it’s in season, and being okay with saying goodbye to it when it’s time to go,” Petaccio said.

Behind (and beyond) the bar

A year into the experiment, Radke seems comfortable letting the people behind the scenes take center stage.

While his celebrity helped introduce Soft Bar to a wider audience, he said the restaurant’s reputation ultimately comes down to the people guests encounter when they walk through the door.

“My favorite thing is when I get a review of Soft Bar and they talk about my staff,” Radke said. “The bartender was so nice, or ‘the barista was really friendly and explained the ingredients.’”

“That is hospitality,” he added. “We’re really trying to deliver a great experience, a premium experience. We wanna get to know you. We wanna ask you questions. We want you to feel comfortable.”

And that may be the clearest sign of where Soft Bar is headed in its second year: toward a business where the celebrity founder remains part of the story, but isn’t the whole story.

“I get a lot of credit sometimes, which is uncomfortable because, you know, being a public figure, being out there, a lot of people certainly are aware of maybe who I am or heard of Soft Bar,” Radke said. “But it’s really the people behind the scenes that have really made what Soft Bar is.”

HE MANHATTAN BEACH SCHOOL, Public School 195, is receiving $60,000 thanks to state Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton.

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