The Sober Bar That Won't Say Kratom

A Colorado kava chain markets itself as a healing space for people in recovery. Its menus never use the word "kratom." Its supply chain runs through a subsidiary with no public presence. The owner says that's all perfectly legal — and he may have a point. But a test may already have found kratom in his product, and he knows it.

Kava bars look like pirate ships. A kind of self contained community where you can get a haircut, a birthday cake made, trade clothes, get a Jungian tarot card reading, participate in standup comedy, open mics, open decks, Smash Bros on Wii, Superbowl watch parties, find a lawyer, host a wake or have your wedding — all in one place. If you want to throw an event, they'll probably say yes. But the reality of a kava bar — and the unusual drinks they serve — creates a murkier picture. A kava bar is equally describable as an unregulated, experimental pharmacology lab. 

When you walk into a Roots & Leaves Kava & Teas location in Fort Collins or Greeley or Santa Fe, the atmosphere is welcoming. Staff are trained in the language of wellness. The website promises a "nurturing atmosphere" for people navigating "the most challenging times" — specifically, those leaving alcohol and drugs behind. "We're helping thousands of people ditch alcohol without losing their social life," says the Roots and Leaves marketing department. 

What the website does not say is that alongside the kava — a mildly sedating Pacific Island plant with a well-documented safety profile — the chain sells a second category of beverage it calls "house teas" or "ethnobotanical teas." These teas come in three varieties: green, white, and red. The menu describes them as coming from a tropical evergreen tree, 4 to 16 meters tall, indigenous to Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and New Guinea. That product, without a doubt, is Kratom. A relative of the coffee plant, it says, without the caffeine. Green is "popular, a balance of energy and pain relief." White is "most stimulating, energizing." Red is "most relaxing, most pain relief."

The word "kratom" does not appear anywhere on the Roots & Leaves website, menus, or any customer-facing materials.

Asked directly why not, owner Tobin Osteen did not deny what the products are. Instead, he offered a different kind of answer. "Part of that has to do with the immature regulation of natural products," he said. "It puts us in a position where we are compliant to the regulatory entities, but we have to be careful about initiating a larger problem."

It is a striking formulation: The word "kratom" is too dangerous to say in public not because the product is kratom, but because regulation is too immature to handle the word safely. Whether that constitutes a defense or a confession depends on what you think consumer disclosure is for.

The Plant in the Room

Kratom — Mitragyna speciosa — is a Southeast Asian tree in the coffee family that grows between 4 and 16 meters tall. Its leaves have been used for pain relief and stimulation for centuries. It is classified by the DEA as a drug of concern. The FDA has issued repeated warnings about its risks. Research has found that 38 percent of regular users meet DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorder.

The chain's current menus name two plants — Mitragyna hirsuta and Sakae Naa — with their wholly-owned supply subsidiary, Sonder Unlimited, listed as the distributor. Hirsuta is a botanical cousin of Mitragyna speciosa, with a similar but less-studied pharmacological profile. It is not, by most current regulatory definitions, kratom. In December of '25, the Roots and Leaves in Santa Fe was banned from serving Kratom by the New Mexico department of health. In their report, the NMDH says, “Lack of regulation around kratom means there is no guarantee of its purity, potency, or even if it’s the supplement it’s advertised as. U.S. poison control centers received more than 3,400 reports about the use of kratom from 2014 to 2019, with common side effects including nausea and vomiting, liver damage, muscle pain, dizziness, hallucinations, tremors, and seizures.” Roots and Leaves corp swiftly pivoted to serving kratom’s cousin, hirsuta. 

But an allegation has already been made that hirsuta is not all that's in the cup. Osteen said, "An anonymous swat found kratom in the hirsuta," he said. "We will fully prove it's not true."

He did not say who made the finding, when it was made, or in what context. He used the word "swat" — possibly a reference to law enforcement, possibly to a regulatory inspection, possibly to a private test by a competitor or regulator. He did not elaborate, and did not appear to want to. Although someone familiar with the matter said Osteen told a previous manager that the hirsuta is "mostly kratom."

An anonymous party tested the Roots & Leaves product and reported finding Mitragyna speciosa alkaloids in a product sold as hirsuta. Osteen disputes the finding. Neither account can be verified without an independent laboratory test. Talking to one anonymous staff member responsible for brewing the product on site, they said the first "hirsuta" product was essentially a green powder, very similar to kratom. The users reported very similar effects, too. After the lab test, this "hirsuta" product was pulled off the shelf. But when it returned the following week, the “new batch” was a completely different color (brown), flavor, and users reported it having a completely different effect. On the subject, one staff member said “people were very proud of themselves for getting off of kratom, and I kinda knew that wasn’t exactly true.”

The Co-Founder Who Ran Kratom Shops

The story of Roots & Leaves begins with a man named Sam Monastra, who, as Denver Westword reported in 2023, was running a kratom store in Ohio when he decided that state's regulatory climate was too precarious and moved to Colorado. Per a Yellow Scene Magazine profile the following year, Monastra had "gained firsthand experience in the plant-based wellness industry" working in Ohio's kratom retail shops.

In 2020, Monastra co-founded the Colorado Mountain Kava Company in Longmont with his father Joe and, by his own account, "a silent partner." That partner was Tobin Osteen — a Longmont construction contractor who had no prior presence in the kava or kratom industry. A February 2021 BizWest article announcing the venture listed four named partners: Sam Monastra, Joe Monastra, Mark Kamann, and Osteen.

Within a year, that partnership was gone.

By January 2022, when the Santa Fe New Mexican covered the chain's expansion into New Mexico, Tobin Osteen was described as the sole owner. By March 2025, BizWest was calling the enterprise "Osteen's growing stable of locations" — eight bars across Colorado and New Mexico, with more planned, employing more than 125 people by Osteen's current count. Sam Monastra had kept the original Longmont address under the Colorado Mountain Kava Company name, where his menu now openly lists "Kratom Teas — Red (relax), Green (euphoria), White (energy)."

Osteen had kept the brand, the corporation, and the expansion. The man who brought the kratom expertise had left. The product — under whatever name — had stayed.

The Supply Chain That Supplies Itself

In May 2021, Roots and Leaves, Corp — the parent entity of the entire chain, registered at Osteen's personal address in Longmont, Colorado — created a wholly-owned subsidiary called Sonder Unlimited, LLC.

Sonder Unlimited has no public website. It has no listed products. It has one known customer: Roots and Leaves, Corp. It is the chain's exclusive supplier of house teas.

The arrangement means that Osteen's company buys product from Osteen's company. When money flows from the bars to the distributor, it stays within the same corporate structure. This is not inherently illegal — related-party supply arrangements are common in retail and franchising. But it does mean that Sonder Unlimited faces no commercial pressure to be transparent, because it markets to no one.

Osteen pushed back on the characterization. "Along with [operating eight locations] comes this supply chain that is required," he said. He described Sonder as holding both FDA and USDA accreditations and providing a certificate of analysis with every delivery — testing for contaminants and biological problems "coming from many thousands of miles away." He said suppliers were also independently responsible for testing their products.

A search of the FDA food facility registration database — which is publicly searchable and required under Colorado's Daniel Bregger Act for any kratom processor — returns no record of Sonder Unlimited, Roots and Leaves, Tobin Osteen, or the company's Longmont address. Osteen's claim of FDA accreditation may refer to a different type of registration, to a status that predates the database's current records, or to accreditation held by upstream suppliers rather than by Sonder itself. It could not be independently verified.

What can be verified is the corporate structure. Sonder Unlimited was formed by Roots and Leaves, Corp — making it a subsidiary, not an independent business. The HR department of the entire operation, Osteen confirmed, is run by the mother of AJ Haney — a man documented as having lived at Osteen's home address during the company's founding period, and who identified himself to a fired bar manager as a Sonder employee rather than a Roots & Leaves employee. Sonder Unlimited went delinquent with the Colorado Secretary of State within 17 months of its formation. A $100 penalty brought it back into good standing.

 Indeed, at least 9 staff members have been fired in the last 2 years from Roots and Leaves in Santa Fe – we reached out to another popular bar in Santa Fe, ‘Desert Dogs’ to see whether this was normal in Santa Fe. General Manager Mourad said, “Maybe 2-3 people have been let go from Desert Dogs in the last few years. Most people leave on their own, or are moving away/ changing careers.” He was very surprised to hear that 9 people had been fired from Roots and Leaves in the same period. 

"Because of Legal Issues"

There is one piece of evidence, gathered before the Osteen interview, that colors everything else.

A bar manager at a Roots & Leaves location told a customer that the chain avoided the word "kratom" on its menus "because of legal issues." That statement — if dated and witnessed — would constitute direct evidence that the chain knew its products fell under kratom regulations and chose deliberate omission as its response.

Osteen's own explanation for the same policy covers some of the same ground, from a different angle. The regulation of "natural products" is immature, he said. Using the word kratom openly would risk "initiating a larger problem." The company is "compliant to the regulatory entities," but must be careful.

This is a coherent position in a genuinely unsettled regulatory landscape. The FDA has not approved kratom for any use. Colorado's rules govern Mitragyna speciosa specifically — and if Roots & Leaves has transitioned to hirsuta, it may in fact be operating in a gray zone rather than a prohibited one. Osteen's lawyers, if he has them, have presumably told him something like this.

But the menu's botanical description — written before any shift to hirsuta — matches speciosa in every measurable detail. Staff verbally identified the products as kratom to customers who asked. Multiple public reviews at the chain's Fort Collins location describe customers drinking kratom and receiving staff recommendations about strains. A Chamber of Commerce listing for Casa de Kava in Santa Fe reads: "Highly recommended for kava and Kratom!" One review describes the atmosphere as "quite creepy," with customers "very high on something, maybe the kratom the bartender talked a lot about."

The Roots & Leaves website, meanwhile, answers the question "Can I drive after drinking kava?" with a single word: "Yes!" It declares that "there is no research that shows kava is addictive or harmful." These assurances appear to apply across all beverages. Kratom impairs driving. A substantial body of research documents its addiction potential.

Asked whether kratom is addictive, Osteen's answer was direct in its own way: "Is sugar addictive? You're more likely to die from sugar." On the health effects of kratom more broadly, he was equally candid about the limits of his own authority. "I'm equally unqualified as you are,” – meant, it seemed, to reassure me.

The question of who is qualified — and whether the answer to that question changes anything about what is currently being sold to people in recovery, without their knowledge — is one Osteen did not resolve.

The Law Named for a Dead Man

Daniel Bregger was 33 years old when he died in Denver in August 2021, from the combined toxic effects of kratom and an over-the-counter antihistamine. He was found by his father, David, who spent the next four years in the Colorado state legislature trying to turn his son's death into consumer protection.

The month Daniel Bregger died, Sonder Unlimited, LLC was formed.

In May 2025, Governor Jared Polis signed SB25-072 — the Daniel Bregger Act. The law requires that anyone processing kratom for sale in Colorado hold current FDA food facility registration, register each product annually with the Colorado Department of Revenue, and label every product with a full ingredient list, health warnings, age restrictions, and usage directions. Violations are deceptive trade practices under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, subject to civil fines between $5,000 and $20,000. Three violations in three years can result in a three-year ban from distributing kratom in Colorado.

Sonder Unlimited does not appear in the FDA food facility registration database. But there is a second problem, and it may be the larger story: the Colorado Department of Revenue has not built the registration system the law requires. No registration portal exists. No public list of registered processors has been published. The $280,606 appropriated for the program in fiscal year 2025–26 appears to have been allocated, but nearly a year after the law's signing, there is nowhere to register even if a company wanted to.

This means no kratom processor in Colorado is currently registered — because the state has not created the mechanism for registration. The law named after a man killed by unlabeled kratom has no operational enforcement infrastructure.

Osteen's claim of regulatory compliance, and the state's inability to verify it, exist in exactly this vacuum.

David Bregger, who has spoken publicly about his son's death and the law's original weaknesses, has not been asked about Roots & Leaves or Sonder Unlimited's status in the database bearing his son's name.

The Healing Space, and What It Sells

The Roots & Leaves website is written with care.

"Those in recovery from substance abuse frequently see kava bars as a crucial component of their healing journey, as we foster a nurturing atmosphere that is free from alcohol and drugs."

"Plant medicine can be particularly beneficial for individuals facing various mental health challenges."

"We are a healing space — embracing the use of traditional plants."

Osteen does not disavow this identity — he insists on it, and with evident conviction. "Why aren't you asking about the sober lifestyle?" he said at one point in the conversation. "We are sending a thousand people home without alcohol, without dangerous driving, every day." He described the business as "essentially a non-profit company." Sharing this quote with one employee, their first response was incredulous. "What?! I dunno. I kind of don’t believe that." According to Osteen, every employee makes more than he does, that the company provides insurance and loaner cars, that the structure is "designed to foster professionalism." He employs roughly 60 full-time workers among a total of 125 staff. He has a CPA and an accountant above that.

"People become more honorable, more respected, more honored by being in kava bars," he said. "It's not about the products at all. It's about the community."

This is where the tension in the story becomes sharpest — and where Osteen's own logic most visibly strains. If it is not about the products, then why does it matter what the products are called? And why not be transparent about what is in them? If the company is compliant with regulatory entities, why can that compliance not be demonstrated in a public database?

Kratom's opioid receptor activity is one of the primary reasons researchers and regulators treat it differently from kava. It is also one of the reasons recovering opioid users are specifically cautioned against it. When asked whether he would commit a fraction of company revenue to longitudinal studies on kratom, kava, hirsuta, and Sakae Naa, Osteen said yes — with a condition. "It can't just focus on the negative," he said. He acknowledged the cost would run to "many many years and millions of dollars," but said the company could cosign such a study if one became available.

He is, in other words, willing to fund the research that would provide supporting evidence of how his products are safe and beneficial. He is not willing to name them on the menu while that research remains undone.

Asked why a company would serve unregulated, understudied substances to a recovery community on those terms, Osteen's answer returned to the community itself. "People become more honorable," he said again. "More respected. More honored."

He may be right about the community. The question that remains — pending an independent laboratory test, and pending the Colorado Department of Revenue building the registration system a dead man's name is attached to — is what the community is drinking.