Huntly thrives on new kava cafe and lounge
Professional wrestler Toks Fale (Aka “Bad Luck Fale” or “the Rouge General”) is putting Huntly on the map, keeping kids out of trouble, and nurturing the town’s Island culture with a new kava cafe and lounge.
He opened the cafe last month, under the name TuiTui Vao Kava Cafe and Lounge, after his mother.
Fale is usually based in Japan, where he wrestles for New Japan ProWrestling, but he’s never forgotten his roots, or the powdered root vegetables his elders drank in his childhood.
He was born in Tonga, but grew up in New Zealand after his family moved when he was six-years-old. Going into young adulthood, he never paid much attention to kava.
“That’s mainly because I thought alcohol was a better option, and there was a stigma about kava just being for older people. Once in a while I’d have it, but I never drank it thinking of it as a better option than alcohol,” Fale said.
“It was only last year that I really started to get into it, and realised it’s helping me more than alcohol does.”
He had the idea for a kava cafe after visiting Hawaii in March of 2023.
“I went to a kava bar in Hawaii, and realised a lot of the customers were young people, and there was no disorder, they were just very chill.”
“I had the idea of starting one in New Zealand because we have a lot of troubled youth, and I thought this could be a good alternative to alcohol. And the youngsters will have more of a chilled time than they would drinking alcohol.” Huntly locals seem to agree with Fale, and he’s already had multiple customers thank him personally for the good they believe the cafe will do for local youth.
“It’s amazing. Even before I opened, I put the signs up maybe three or four months beforehand, and there was already a buzz all over town,” Fale said.
“Pretty much everyday we get new people coming in and tasting it, and a lot of them are starting to return because they enjoy it and it’s relaxing.”