Gaia's Kava Root

Gaia's Kava Root opened in October 2024 on Central Avenue, the old Route 66 corridor running past the University of New Mexico, and it is family-owned — co-founder Jonjon is the name attached to it publicly. The stated intent is unusually explicit for a bar of any kind: the room is meant to be a sanctuary, described in its own words as "a living room for the curious, the creative, the healers, and the ones who needed something different." In practice that means a space built for staying rather than turning over, on a street where the alternatives after midnight are student bars. It is 100% alcohol-free, and it keeps genuinely late hours — past midnight through the week, and to 4am on Friday and Saturday nights, which is later than most licensed venues in the city manage.

The drinks list is broader than a straight kava bar's. Kava is the anchor, served by the shell from around $6 up to $20 depending on size, with shots for anyone who wants it fast. Alongside it the bar pours kanna — Sceletium tortuosum, a mood-lifting succulent from South Africa traditionally chewed or brewed — which is genuinely uncommon on an American drinks menu and gives the room a second thing to be known for. A long herbal tea list runs strawberry, pineapple, cherry, watermelon, lavender, mango and lemon-lime, and the specialty mocktails are built to be ordered on their own merits rather than as consolation, with zero alcohol in any of them. Sodas, energy drinks and water fill out the rest, with prices from about $2. One point deserves stating plainly for readers in recovery: both kava and kanna are psychoactive botanicals, not inert soft drinks. Neither contains alcohol, and neither is a stimulant in the way coffee is, but both act on mood and both are intoxicants in the broad sense. Gaia's draws the line where most kava bars do, restricting kava to adults 18 and over.