Passage Kava Lounge

Passage Kava Lounge sits at 1504B Gallatin Pike South in Madison, north-east of central Nashville, and describes itself in exactly six words on its own site: a 21+ non-alcoholic bar in Nashville. It is the work of Ryan Holding, who had managed a 24-hour kava bar in Florida before opening his own. Seeing the power of a safe, relaxed space there, he has said, convinced him there was a better way to do it — and the room he chose to do it in was an old Kmart garden centre, four bare walls when he took it on. What he built inside is deliberately unlike a bar: Victorian-influenced, with dark wood wainscoting, deep green walls, leather lounge chairs and a chandelier, arranged for sitting and talking rather than standing and drinking. The lounge has been open since around September 2024, though the plan dates to 2021, and it placed second for Best New Business in the Nashville Scene's Best of Nashville reader awards in 2024.

The centre of the drinks list is traditional kava, made from imported South Pacific root — the powder is steeped in water and strained through cheesecloth, and the result is genuinely bitter, with a numbing tingle in the mouth that first-timers should expect rather than be surprised by. Around that sit house kava drinks priced roughly $5 to $12, including Royal Cinnamon, Velvet Shortcake and Berry Chocolate, alongside mocktails, artisanal kombucha, teas and coffee, with charcuterie boards if you are staying a while. Holding's framing of the place is the clearest description of what it is for: for a lot of people, he has said, going out drinking is more about being social — and elsewhere he has called it almost a mix of a coffee shop and a bar, but without the bar fights. The lounge programmes most nights of the week with live music, trivia and karaoke, which is what makes it function as a genuine evening out rather than a daytime cafe. Note the 21+ door policy, and that kava is psychoactive in its own right, which some people avoiding alcohol will want to weigh.