Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lindsay Kronk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lindsay , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our mission at Kava Sol is to spread love and foster connection while creating inclusion for all. Our botanical, non-alcoholic bar is not only a place to enjoy tasty alternative drinks, it’s also a community for like-minded people to connect and feel that they have a third place to go and be seen and heard. My partner Mathew and I opened Kava Sol after the death of my mother by suicide in 2022. She was a beautiful, creative soul with an artistic heart specializing in abstract art. She had been sober almost 22 years until she picked up again after a tumultuous stint of hospitalizations that caused her mental health to spiral. She struggled a lot of her life to find her ‘place’ when she was sober. To fit in. To have a place to be seen and heard and understood. A community that she didn’t feel different and pressured to be or act a certain way. Her death was the catalyst for me to create a space in her honor that allowed people to connect over something other than alcohol offering events and gatherings that helped inspire and connect one another with a wellness intent behind. I hope everyone who comes through our doors feels our love and feels included as part of the Kava Sol family.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been a top producing realtor in both Chicago and Cleveland for 10 years, with a team of women I have grown and supported over the last 4 years. When I decided to get into the real estate industry 10 years ago at age 25, I knew it was a perfect blend of my skill sets, and loved the feeling of helping people find home. I also knew, that my success in real estate would be a conduit for my entrepreneural spirit (that my mom used to claim I had since I was born). When my mom was struggling with anxiety and depression in 2021 through multiple hospital stays, I found myself taking on the same emotions, hurting that I couldn’t help her. Instead of picking up alcohol like I had for years, my friend recommended I grab some kava drinks to help with the anxiety. Kava! I remember you! I had tried it 6 years prior in Hawaii when my sister had lived on the Big Island. I wasn’t ready for it then, but in 2021 it became my goto instead of alchol which was actually causing me more anxiety by drinking it. From there, my partner (in life and business) Mathew and I started doing all the research on alternative drinks we could… we visited over 20 kava bars in Florida and Pennsylvania, engaged with other kava bar owners, and began to develop our vision for Kava Sol – a botanical, non alcoholic kava bar (brand). Our idea was to elevate the kava bar scene and make these botanical plant based beverages with amazing health benefits more accessible to everyone. Many kava bars we visited were dark, dingy, and sort of dive bar feeling. We wanted to create a light, bright, welcoming place for anyone to come and learn about our plant based drinks.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I think being as real as you can be on social media, especially for our brand and business, is what helped us gain traction. I began posting months before we opened with teasers, process pics and videos, and information about the drinks we’d have – most importantly kava since it’s new to our area. Before we opened I hosted a social media influencer day where local influencers came in for complimentary drinks and a first look of our space. That helped us get the word out quickly and in large scale and grew our following. In our e-blasts and on our website we encourage people to follow us to stay up to date on the many events we host. I have also boosted posts over time to get to more eyes. Overall I’d say consistency in posting relevant topics including informational posts, posts about our drinks, testimonials, and highlighting our customers has helped people relate to us and choose to follow our journey.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

About a month after we submitted our applications to the city of Willoughby, we were alerted that the city council issued a moratorium on the sale and consumption on site of the products we intended to carry. This was a repeated action from another local community, that the city took action to ban these plant based drinks (in my opinion because they did not know what they were), and stopped us in our tracks. They presented this news to us while we were at a council meeting presenting our plans to be approved for our patio, and we were blindsided. What would this mean for us? We had already invested over $20k in architect drawings, interior designer renderings, application fees, and had put a large deposit down and signed our lease. It truly felt like we were being targeted and completely misunderstood. We are located in a quaint downtown of Willoughby, Ohio, where there are around 10 bars mixed in with other local businesses, and it absolutely shocked us that the city was more fearful of our NON ALCOHOLIC bar than the drinking and driving that we knew took place daily from the other establishments. We had to engage an attorney to communicate with the city attorney because we were not getting a straight answer of if this newfound protocol would effect us or not. After many weeks of the attorney avoiding our requests for something in writing confirming our approval, numerous conversations with council people, a lot of tears and stress, we finally received word that we could open up because our application was prior to the mortatorium. This delayed construction by a month and moved our planned opening date from Memorial Day weekend to the middle of June. Thinking back on this stress it frustrates me because those individuals who issued the moratorium on kava, kratom, Delta 8 and Delta 9 (which we do not serve) stated they needed to do more research on these products, and not one of the council people has been into our bar to conduct said research by learning more about them, sampling our drinks, or witnessing the community we have built for sober and sober curious people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kavasol.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kava_sol/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kavasolbotanicalbar/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaykronk/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WUEwf4KkY
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kava-sol-willoughby

Image Credits
Austin Cupach