Root Awakening Kava Bar

Root Awakening opened in 2022 at 300 Main Street as New England's first kava bar, and it serves no alcohol at all. Greg Gately started it after losing his brother to alcoholism not long before the pandemic, and he has been plain about what the place is for: he firmly believes his brother is looking over him and rooting him on, and that people who do not want to drink at traditional bars now have a place. He had been drinking kava himself since about 2016, and describes it with no romance whatsoever — muddy water is what they call it, because it tastes like earth. What he built runs like a bar rather than a tea room, open to midnight on weeknights and 1am at weekends, with a full week of programming: movie night on Mondays, ladies' night on Tuesdays, trivia on Wednesdays, a darts tournament on Thursdays and karaoke from 8pm on Fridays. That calendar is the point. A room that is only open until nine with nothing to do in it does not replace a bar; this does.

The drinks are built rather than poured, and they lean deliberately towards dessert and comfort rather than trying to imitate cocktails. The hand-pressed kava list runs Give Me Samoa at $13, which takes traditional kava into cocoa, salted caramel and coconut milk with a cookie on the side; the Chocolatta at $11, kava with cocoa and your choice of milk; a PB & K at $12 that adds peanut butter protein; and a cold brew kava latte at $12 made with ten-hour cold brew. The Pure Kavatails are the lighter half — a Kava Kolada at $12 in five flavours, a Kava Kreme Float at $11 built on root beer, cream soda or orange soda, the Kavarita at $12, a sweet and sour lemon-lime refresher the bar calls its signature, and The Bula at $12, locally sourced kombucha spiked with kava elixir over ice. Kombucha alone is $7 under a section headed Buzz Free. Two caveats worth having. The menu is published through a third-party listing that warns it may not be current, so prices can drift. And while kratom appears on no menu we could find, at least one customer account describes it being served here — kava is psychoactive in its own right, so ask what is in a drink if that matters to you.