Look: There’s a reason the guy who runs your company doesn’t have a dogeared copy of Vape Afficionado magazine on his mahogany desk.
For many Canadians, and so naturally many of us here in Windsor-Essex, there is something undeniably desirable, gratifying, and status-affirming about the act of smoking a cigar.
We find many cigar smokers are drawn to the general allure of connoisseurship: trying, assessing, and collecting new things, and slotting them into a mental database of tastes and smells and other sense data. Cigar aficionados like cigars, but they also like being aficionados.
You can imagine a certain sort of person fitting this mould and assume that’s what cigar smokers are like, and you would be correct most of the time. But you would also be wrong some of the time; young Canadians who play sports, get married, have babies, and, honestly, have a general interest in reproducing the rituals of masculinity are still using fine imported tobacco to punctuate their peaks in life.
Of course, cigars are not for everybody: According to Stats Canada, only about one in 40 Canadians over the age of 15 reported smoking any type of cigar in the past month. But, perhaps surprisingly, 20-24-year-olds are more likely than any other age cohort to light up. Cigars aren’t going anywhere.
The Drive checked in with a few friends in the local scene. Despite what on the surface appear to be the Government of Canada’s best efforts, it seems business is still solid for tobacconists serving the upper end of the market. It turns out, as American customers make fewer and fewer trips into Windsor and cigars become increasingly niche products, entrepreneurs are getting creative. And, in a surprising twist of fate, the cigar smoking traffic is now crossing the border in the other direction.
At Havana Palace, Owner Cesar Kanati claims to offer Windsor’s finest selection of Cuban, Dominican, Honduran, and Nicaraguan cigars. Just south of Fred’s Farm Fresh on Huron Church Road, the tobacconist has catered to local and American customers for nearly three decades. Kanati opened shop in 1996 on Grand Marais Avenue as CK Havana, relocating and renaming the business in 2011 during the construction of the R. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway. Today, he says he carries “every cigar available in Canada.”
If you have time to listen, Kanati will rattle off a litany of (often reasonable sounding) grievances with federal tobacco regulations. While American customers once comprised more than three quarters of Havana Palace’s business, Kanati has seen that customer base dwindle to around 10 percent of his total sales. “The price of the Cuban cigars went up, and the other stuff is cheaper in the States,” he admits.
But while Kanati’s excitement in the sale of cigars has diminished over the past decade, he still has unfiltered enthusiasm for the product. “The future for my industry is not too good, but I love cigars,” he shares. “Relaxation. Socialization. Enjoyment. After a stressful day,” he offers, “you sit down with a cigar, pour a glass of whiskey, and put your legs up on the La-Z-Boy: It’s still the best thing you can do.”
According to Kanati, while market conditions have changed, the cigars themselves are improving. “The product is even better than before,” he enthuses. “The Nicaraguans, especially, have really improved. One day they’re going to be better than the Cubans.”
While Kanati has seen many dear clients come and go over the course of his decades in business, he is noticing a steady trickle of new, younger customers. Among this set, Kanati singles out golfers as his most consistent clientele. “In the wintertime, the business goes down the drain, because the golf courses are closed and there’s nowhere to smoke,” he laments. “You can’t smoke inside any social club, any bar, anywhere. People smoke in their garage, but it’s cold; maybe a little one for ten minutes.”
While times may be tough for full-time cigar retailers, enthusiastic entrepreneurs are still finding promising niches in the local scene. Most notably, Windsor’s Cigar Conservatory offers what it calls a “bespoke” tobacconist experience, prioritizing custom orders and various forms of personalization.
Owners Frank and Jessica Filippakis personally meet clients, assess budgets and preferences, and place custom orders for full cases or curated “sample packs” of cigars from Cuba, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere around the world. The couple have close relationships with major suppliers House of Horvath and Havana House and St. Dupont, a 150-year-old French brand Frank calls “the Rolex of cigar accessories.” Because the Cigar Conservatory stocks limited inventory and carries few overhead costs, it can often sell cigars at appetizing price points.
Cigar Conservatory’s brick-and-mortar storefront is in the 1600 block of Ottawa Street, on the upper level of the Karen’s for Kids building. If you have a hard time finding the door, understand that’s by design: “We’re somewhat incognito,” admits Frank. “We wanted to have a speakeasy feel. Our space doesn’t really look like a cigar shop.”
The couple also sets up and staffs cigar booths for weddings and other special events and offer a suite of custom personalization services, including laser etching or labelling names and business logos onto cigars and their packaging.
“Our clientele is people who know what they want, and I think we’ve seen that customer base growing,” says Frank, who stresses every package comes with a piece of dark chocolate, a business card, and a humidity controlling packet. “Even though the vapes and that are out there, I think people are going back to the old school traditions, back to handmade things.”
The Filippakises’ figure cigar smokers are experience seekers. “A cigar is something you do that’s celebratory. Having it with your buddies at the cottage, or at golfing, or at a wedding. It’s not like a cigarette where you smoke it where you’re stressed out. It brings people together.”
Frank’s personal interest blossomed about 15 years ago, when an HR manager at a Toronto workplace offered him a Cuban during a teambuilding night out. “It evolved from there,” he recalls. “I started experimenting with different brands and different tobacco.”
Some nights, Frank’s exploration takes him to Churchill’s a small chain of cigar lounges across the border with locations in West Bloomfield, Birmingham, and Grosse Pointe Woods.
The Drive spoke with David Stankovich, a bartender and server who has been with Churchill’s since 2012. A Michigan native, Stankovich married Canadian and now commutes to work from his home in Belle River.
According to Stankovich, Essex County cigar afficionados have always made pilgrimages to Metro Detroit cigar bars, but he’s noticed an uptick in Canadian business at Churchill’s since about 2016. “You can eat, you can drink, and you can smoke anywhere in the building, without getting up,” he explains. “That alone is a magnet.”
(Besides cigars, Churchill’s promises robust selections of beers, wines, and spirits. The Birmingham and Grosse Pointe Woods locations also have full kitchens.)
According to Stankovich, Churchill’s hosts a diverse clientele including a spectrum of men in their mid to late 20s to those in their 80s. (And women, of course. But the stats do tell us men smoke cigars at more than six times the rate.)
Since Churchill’s allows clients to smoke cigars from their personal collections with no cutting fees, it is anything but an exclusive, private members’ club.
“If you have any questions, anybody in the building can suggest drink pairings and help you decide which style, flavour, or strength you’d like to smoke,” says Stankovich, who estimates the chain’s larger locations offer upwards of 1,000 options, including both rare and accessible choices. “We cut, we light, we do everything for you at the table. It’s like dropping your car off at a valet.”
Stankovich, who likens the establishment’s atmosphere to “Cheers on steroids,” has seen consistent business over his decade-plus with Churchill’s. “What do you get after you win a trophy in professional sports?” he asks rhetorically. “Cigars are iconic, necessary items at certain moments of life.”
Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
“We’re predicated in the USA on guns, booze, and cigars,” Stankovich boasts. “That’s the mantra.”
Havana Palace is located at 2212 Huron Church Rd. in Windsor. For more information, phone (519) 972-9090.
Cigar Conservatory is located at 1647 Ottawa St. (Upper) in Windsor. For more information, see www.cigarconservatory.com.
Churchill’s operates three locations in Southeast Michigan. For more information, see www.churchillscigarbar.com.
