Huli Huli Tiki Lounge (Powell)

Huli Huli Tiki Lounge opened in a former antique shop on West Olentangy Street in downtown Powell, the Delaware County suburb at the northern edge of the Columbus metro, and is the first of two rooms run by owner Dustin Sun. The bar takes its name and its philosophy from Hawaiian rather than generic Polynesian-pop tiki, and the house framing is the aloha spirit — the site quotes the definition at length — which in practice means a room built for lingering rather than for volume drinking.

Tiki is a better fit for non-alcoholic drinking than most bar formats, because the architecture of the classics is fruit, syrup, spice, citrus and crushed ice, with the rum providing weight rather than the whole idea. Huli Huli works that to its advantage in two directions. First, the house cocktails are available in alcohol-free versions built to order: the Honolulu Mule, the Blue Hawaii — which the bar serves zero-proof under the name Untrod Beach — and others across the list. Second, there are drinks conceived as non-alcoholic from the start. The Baby Aspirin blends pineapple, orange and cream of coconut and arrives in a coconut cup, which sounds like a garnish decision but matters: the presentation is identical to the full-proof service, so nobody at the table is visibly the one not drinking. The Seafoam Sipper pairs cream soda with pandan and mint, pandan being a South-East Asian leaf with a grassy, vanilla-adjacent flavour that gives the drink something to do beyond sweetness. CityScene named the bar in its December 2025 alcohol-free roundup on the strength of that menu. The room opens at 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays and closes Mondays. Powell itself is a small historic downtown roughly twenty minutes north of central Columbus, and the bar is one of the few destinations in the northern suburbs with a developed alcohol-free list, which makes it worth the drive for anyone based on that side of the metro rather than only for tiki enthusiasts. Food is tropical bar snacks rather than a full kitchen.