Best Non-Alcoholic Bars in Kailua-Kona, HI

Kanaka Kava has poured ʻawa — the Hawaiian name for kava — from the Coconut Grove Marketplace on Aliʻi Drive since 2001, and serves no alcohol. It is a Native Hawaiian family business, founded by ʻAnakala Zach and carried on by his ʻohana, and the ʻawa is grown and harvested on their own farm on Hawaiʻi Island rather than imported, served fresh in coconut-shell cups. The kitchen turns out traditional plates alongside it — kalua pork, squid lūʻau, poke, baked ʻuala and poi — in a small open-air room a few steps back from the waterfront, with open-mic and live-music nights through the week. ʻAwa contains no alcohol but is psychoactive and mildly sedating.

Around the Kava Bowl is a fully alcohol-free kava bar in Captain Cook, twelve miles up the hill from Kailua-Kona, serving fresh Hawaiian and Pacific kava since 2019. It operates from the back of the Hoʻo Hui wellness centre — the old Captain Cook courthouse building on Mamalahoa Highway, across from the NAPA auto parts store — and trades on being the cooler, quieter alternative when the Kona coast is too hot. Its own stated purpose is to create and nurture ʻohana through community, culture and oneness around the kava bowl. Posted hours are not reliably published, so call ahead. Kava contains no alcohol but is psychoactive and mildly sedating.