Making Buds Without the Buzz: Passage Kava Lounge
- Braden Simmons
- 9 hours ago
- 5 min read
Forest green walls and dark wooden panels encase the interior and contrast with the formal white marble counters, leather lounge chairs and a chandelier hanging at the center of the bar.
This isn’t a grimy Nashville dive bar with sticky hardwood floors, but here it doesn’t matter if a guest wears a suit or a pair of sweatpants.
Everyone gets a seat at the table.
Or at the bar, as it were.
“It’s almost like a mix of a coffee shop and bar, but without the bar fights,” said brew master Chris Blackburn.
Oh, or the alcohol.
You won’t find that here either.
Passage Kava Lounge is a space to let the good times flow without the booze. It’s the only bar in the Nashville area not dealing in alcohol. It exists as counter-culture to the noisy honkytonks, out-of-tune karaoke bars and cowboy boot-scooting dancehalls.
The lounge deals in connection rather than inebriation.
“For a lot of people when they go out drinking, it’s more about being social,” said Ryan Holding, the owner of the lounge. “Kava bars are able to give you that social aspect, but since you’re not being impaired, you’ll actually be able to remember that conversation the next day.”
Holding, donned in a dark green and black blazer with a golden brooch and matching velvet green shoes, blends in with the walls of the bar.
He sits in the back corner, watching for new faces to come through those doors.
He doesn’t stay seated for long.
He greets each person with a smile and a question:
“Want to share in a Bula?”
A Bula is a Fijian tradition that means “life” and it's a spectacle.
A filled bowl slides to everyone who raises their hands.
Even Winfield West, the Kava-tender of the night, pours a cup for himself.
Everyone is included.
Holding declares:
“Shells up, cups up.”
The bowls, which serve as substitutes for coconut shells, raise in unison as Holding recites a toast that differs on the time and day.
This time he says:
“To magical Tuesday nights, may all of your dreams come true. Bula.”
Everyone says “Bula” back and chugs the brown drink down.
Kava: it's an acquired taste.
It’s hella bitter and leaves your mouth buzzing.
The moment becomes a shared experience and conversation catalyst.
“A Bula automatically connects a new person coming in,” said Holding.
Holding, a non-Nashvillian himself came to the city looking for connections and he saw kava as the perfect way to do it.
Just like good Scotch, the buzz from kava lingers on the tongue and it keeps bringing people back looking for more.
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The regulars make themselves easy to spot.
They trickle in and filter into their unspoken assigned spots at the bar.
Shane Daugherty, a transfer student at Belmont University this year, has had trouble making connections at college.
But here at the Lounge it only took a few visits for her to get fully immersed.
“My experience here has been fantastic…It's become my home away from home,” she said. “There are other regulars who are here just as often as I am, and you get close with them and, and you miss it when you're gone.”
The space and the kava at the Lounge have helped Daugherty navigate six months of sobriety.
“It's a game changer,” she said. “There was no space like this and don't get me wrong, I still love a bar, I'll still go to a bar and drink a fake beer or something, but you're not going to go to a sports bar and get work done or have real conversations with people.”
And like the kava, at Passage, the conversations flow.
“I think that's so special,” said Holding. “You’re actually making friends with people you’d never usually talk to, like they're so different from you and you realize that we're all people, and we just want to have a good, safe time.”
Even if the conversations aren’t always safe for all audiences.
“Conversation-wise, we will be serious. We will be talking about life and hardships, really intense stuff to then be making sex jokes,” said Daugherty. “It completely varies.”
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This kava lounge also varies from the more tropical and island-themed ones found in Florida.
It’s a clash between modern and formal.
Just like Holding.
“I want people to feel like they’re walking into my den when they’re coming in here,” he said, “It welcomes you to my world.”
A world of upscale design without the typical demands coming with that space.
Even the lounge’s T-shirt is modeled on a mannequin bundled beneath a formal suit jacket.
The seats face each other beckoning conversations between new guests, returners and the bar staff.
Everyone contributes to the experience.
“The people,” said Blackburn, “at the end of the day, they’re the only reason that I’m here.”
Including on his off day where Blackburn sits among the regulars.
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When he's not saddled behind the bar, Blackburn brews the kava in the back room.
The kava-making process is an act of love as much as it is a workout.
It's strenuous but worth it, said Holding.
Kava comes to the bar as a powder, where it’s added to water and steeps.
A cheesecloth is dipped in water and then wrung to collect every drop of liquid but not the residue.
The liquid looks something like chocolate milk, but it tastes closer to coffee.
The kava is a chameleon, mixed for just about every taste pallet.
The Royal Cinnamon, a crowd favorite, masks the kava bitterness behind a sweet, milky, cinnamon coated aftertaste. Other blended drinks include the Velvet Shortcake and the Berry Chocolate. The prices generally vary from $5 to $12.
The drinks are an everyday experience.
Literally.
Passage provides passage for kava drinkers 365 days a year.
“If you have a community, you're going to want to enjoy that community, not on the days that are convenient for the business, because your community doesn't revolve around the business. It revolves your community,” said Holding’s husband, Warren Holding.
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On a Thursday night Ryan Holding connects cables and ties a mic to a speaker system.
It’s karaoke night.
Events are held daily, here.
Game nights, trivia nights and tonight’s promotion - karaoke night.
He picks out some bar favorites ranging from Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” to the B-52’s “Love Shack.”
The stage and mic at the front remain empty. It’s not from a lack of interest, it's just that a buzz is starting to brew up at the bar.
No one wants to be torn away from the people or the conversations.
Holding lets the music play and goes back to his usual spot at the corner of the bar and join a conversation.
A new guests walk through the doors and the spectacle starts anew.
“Want to join in a Bula?” Holding said.
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This article was written by Braden Simmons