Kava Sol

Lindsay Cronk and Matthew Butler opened Kava Sol in June 2023 in a rear unit on Erie Street in downtown Willoughby, about twenty miles east of downtown Cleveland, and it remains the east side's first dedicated botanical bar — the whole of the region's alcohol-free scene until then sat west of the river. The room is small and deliberately tropical, all plants, warm light and low seating, and the pair have spent the time since opening explaining what kava actually is to a market that had mostly never encountered it. Butler's line about sourcing — you would not buy sushi from a gas station — is the shorthand he uses for why the bar imports its own root and prepares it traditionally rather than buying in pre-made extract, and it doubles as the argument for why the drinks taste like something.

The list runs in two directions. Kava is served by the shell in a range of strains, with a standing happy hour of $2 off daily from 3pm to 6pm and all day Saturday, which makes it one of the cheapest ways to spend an evening out in Lake County. The mocktail side is written like a cocktail menu, built on house-made syrups, fresh juice and non-alcoholic spirits: the Speakeasy, at $9, combines Three Spirit's social botanical elixir with The Pathfinder, a house-brewed elixir, orange and maple, and Cleveland Magazine's 2026 mocktail guide picked it out as one of the region's better zero-proof builds.

Kratom is served alongside kava, which is worth stating plainly: these are psychoactive botanicals with their own effects, not zero-proof substitutes, and the distinction matters for anyone choosing an alcohol-free room for recovery reasons. The bar closes to the public Monday through Wednesday and takes private bookings instead, then programs the rest of the week heavily — live music, markets and community events that make it function as an evening venue rather than a tea shop. Nothing on the premises contains alcohol.