Root City Kava Bar & Lounge

Root City Kava Bar & Lounge occupies three floors at 917 Cathedral Street in Mount Vernon, and The Baltimore Banner describes it as the only bar and social lounge dedicated to kava beverages in Maryland. It opened in October 2024, and the building is used properly: a cafe on one level, a bar and lounge on another, and a retro arcade with gaming above. Programming runs to live music, open mics and themed nights, and the hours are built for a genuine night out rather than an early one — 2pm to 2am Tuesday through Saturday, midnight on Mondays, with Sundays from noon to 8pm. One of the founders came to kava while navigating his own sobriety, which is the origin story behind a good many kava bars and explains why they tend to be better at hospitality than the wellness framing suggests.

What is served needs stating precisely, because the category is not well understood and Maryland's drinks landscape has changed. The venue's own description of its drinks list is "kava, kratom, teas and mocktails" — so alongside traditional kava shells and genuinely inert botanical mocktails and teas, this bar serves kratom, which is a distinct substance with its own risks and its own dependence profile, and which many people avoiding alcohol will want to make a deliberate decision about rather than encounter as a menu item. Kava itself is psychoactive too. No alcohol is served. The executive director of the Kava Coalition, speaking to The Banner about the category generally, was clear that people under eighteen should not partake at all. Two further caveats: the venue does not render its menu in a readable form online, so no prices or ingredient lists can be checked in advance, and its site currently describes itself as being under new ownership without naming who — press from 2024 and 2025 names different people, so ownership here has moved more than once.