 SMOKE Cities: Detroit - Motor City Smokin' (continued) 
The following afternoon, all eyes were off the baseball diamond and on the unique street party that is the Woodward Dream Cruise. After a day drooling over Plymouth Road Runners, Chevy Camaros, Pontiac GTOs, and a fleet of other well-preserved roadsters, followed by an excellent dinner at the Marriott’s Coach Insignia restaurant, I was more than ready to cap off the evening with a triple-threat indulgence of cigars, cocktails, and live jazz. I found all three at Robusto’s Martini Lounge and Wine Bar, out in the leafy suburb of Grosse Pointe Woods. The sweet sound of Motown beckoned me in, and upon entering one of the first things that struck me was the incredible ventilation. I couldn’t smell any smoke, so I actually had to look around the room to make sure others were actually puffing before I lit up my own cigar. I sat at the bar and savored the Motown Martini - one of the signature cocktails on Robusto’s impressive menu of no less than 185 martinis (all shaken, not stirred, in the James Bondian tradition). The cigar list is not overly diverse (most selections are Dominican, and heavy on the H. Upmann, Montecristo, and Romeo y Julieta brands) but offers several gems at decent prices. And of course, the bar welcomes your own cigars as well. After soaking in the atmosphere - African mahogany walls with banks of humidors, granite countertops, lots of wood and brass, an upstairs loft area overlooking the stage - and listening to the live band, I speak to Scott Baumgart, who founded this Epicurean oasis three years ago, and now runs it with his wife Jackie.
“This is the only place in and around Detroit,” he says, “to offer a true cigar nightlife experience.” Baumgart was mainly interested in serving the burgeoning martini culture, but saw that the out-of-control anti-smoking sentiment, even in relatively smoke-friendly Detroit, was driving people to seek out nightlife venues where they could light up in peace. According to Baumgart, a majority of people who work in Detroit proper make their homes out here, in outposts like Grosse Pointe, Birmingham, Royal Oak, and Auburn Hills (the actual home of Detroit’s NBA champion Pistons). Thus the presence of many cigar friendly restaurants and nightspots like Big Rock Chop and Brew House in Birmingham; Goodnight Gracie in Royal Oak; and Union Bar and Kitchen in Clarkston, all of which are worth the drive from downtown. It is also out here that one will find a lot of the tobacco shops - a fact that would send me back out into the Motor City hinterlands the next morning. Robusto’s Martini Lounge & Wine Bar, 19271 Mack Avenue, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI 48236, Tel: (313) 881-0100. 
A local fellow named Mark
Simon had been preparing to go to college for dentistry when he discovered one of (at the time) several pipe stores in and around Detroit, and before too long, was working there after school and on weekends, learning all about pipes, cigars, and tobacco blending, and becoming an expert at selling all kinds of products and accessories. The gentle lure of the leaf overcame the siren call of the dentist’s drill, and after Simon met his wife-to-be, they decided to borrow $3,000 from each of their parents to open the shop in Grosse Pointe. The early days are still clear as glass to Simon: “We spent about half the money on a trip to the RTDA (Retail Tobacco Dealers of America) show in New York to get inventory; the rest was spent on remodeling here. The place used to be a kitchen fixtures shop but by then it was gutted; the previous owners had pulled out sinks, counters, plumbing; drywall was hanging everywhere. It was a mess.” With the help of his future best man, a trained carpenter, Simon had the place up and running in 30 days.
The result is a shop that actually looks as if it’s been around a lot longer than it has, with lots of personal touches - like a bowling pin autographed by a star-studded lineup of pro bowlers from a tournament that Simon once attended - and an impressive collection of estate meerschaum pipes and antique stand-up ashtrays. Pipes are still Simon’s first love (he makes the case that he and his shop were instrumental in educating a generation of pipe enthusiasts around these parts), and he carries between 1,500 to 3,000 pipes at all times. He offers up to 30 brands of cigars in a sizeable walk-in humidor. It was well picked-over when I arrived, lending credence to Simon’s contention that he’s the only big tobacconist in a fairly wide radius. C.A.O., Punch, La Gloria Cubana Serie R., and H. Upmann are among Hill and Hill’s top sellers, in addition to the house brand, Supremos, a Dominican bundle cigar that’s got a large local following, and the flavor-infused ACID line from Drew Estates, which Simon claims is popular exclusively with “men under 32.” Flavored house-created pipe tobacco blends like Cherry Crunch, Royal Copenhagen, and Dark Cavalier are also local favorites. Business comes mostly from the cigar-hungry west and south sides of Detroit, but he also has loyal customers who drive from lower and upper Michigan and even as far as Ohio. And it’s a diverse lot. “I have 21-year-olds; I have a 96-year-old,” Simon explains. “I have the poorest of the poor to the wealthiest of the wealthy. Auto executives like the Fords, beer barons like the Strohs, and some men who literally live on the street. I don’t care if he comes in with holes in his pants or a $3,000 suit. I treat them all the same way, as an individual.” Hill and Hill Tobacconists, Ltd., 19529 Mack Avenue, Grosse Pointe, MI 48236, Tel: (313) 882-9452 
A retailer with less history, but more locations, is the Tobacco Road franchise. Roughly 10 years ago, Roy Sitto saw the opportunity presented by the growth of Detroit’s suburbs and launched a tobacco shop to serve them. Tobacco Road started with one store in Westland, but, thanks in part to the cigar boom, has expanded to six altogether, with a second Westland store, one in South Lyon, one in Walled Lake, and the one I visit, in the quiet enclave of Taylor.
Longtime store manager David Burns is manning the counter as I walk in, and as he assists the day’s early-bird customers, I check out the small but diverse walk-in humidor to the store’s rear. I notice a decent selection of large brands (Macanudo, Partagas), a modest selection of well-known boutiques (Arturo Fuente, but not the more rarefied lines) and, as with Hill and Hill, a surprisingly extensive lineup of Drew Estates products, both ACID and the Natural line - which apparently sell quite well here. Between patrons, Burns acquaints me with Tobacco Road. “When this store started, the cigar boom wasn’t at its peak, but it was starting to head that way,” he recalls. “Whether [Sitto] knew about the long term or not I don’t know, but things were very good back then. Business took off very quickly, and he expanded as the opportunity arose.” The clientele at the Taylor store is “mostly middle class,” according to Burns, due to its location and proximity to the heart of working-class Detroit - about 15 minutes by car. A more affluent crowd shops at the stores further north of the city. The softening of the cigar craze has been felt here - cigarettes, in fact, account for a higher volume of sales these days - but cigars are slowly rebounding, and a number of good customers wooed during the heady '90s never went away. “Cigars are holding their own,” Burns confirms. “It’s not like a few years ago, but the excitement about new lines has kept it going. I have regulars who buy both boxes and bundles, and some guys who come in every day just to buy their one.” The store has a wealth of cigarette brands, some cutters and lighters by Colibri, and a smattering of mostly lower-end pipes (Pipes are “a small part” of the business, according to Burns, though the store does boast a few loyal longtime smokers as regulars). Burns denies that the proposed indoor smoking legislation caused any worries, stating that recent tax increases have already driven business out of Michigan, and the state couldn’t handle another hit to those revenues. Internet sales, he states, are the main area of concern - but is quick to point out the pitfalls of ordering online as well. “The tax increase upset a lot of people,” he explains, “and it makes it harder for us to compete with outlets like the Internet. It’s cheaper, but in the long run, it has its ups and downs. You really can’t tell what you’re going to get, whether it’s even fresh. Sometimes you have to order a certain amount, which means spending a decent amount of money. And then you have to wait for it to arrive. Here, you can come in anytime you want and spend as much as you want at one time. I guess that’s what keeps places like this going.” Tobacco Road, 7150 Pardee Road, Taylor, MI, 48180, Tel: (313) 292-8006. That, and the fact that dodging tobacco taxes via the Internet isn’t strictly legal. But then, there’s always the bigger illicit temptation for cigar enthusiasts, waiting across the river like forbidden fruit: Windsor, Ontario and its Casa del Habano shop, stocked with Cuba’s finest, not more than a few minutes’ drive from the U.S./Canadian border. In the name of being thorough, I had to try to check that out. Mark indulges my whim and drives us to the mouth of the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel, where customs and immigration officials greet commuters going over the border. Having short-sightedly forgotten to bring my U.S. passport on this jaunt, I sit in the car pensively while Mark chats with the stern-faced guards about my likelihood of being let through without it - and more importantly, my chances of being allowed back in. Mark returns to the vehicle shaking his head. As we both suspected, post-9/11 security upgrades have made it a bit dicey for anyone to cross the borders without a passport. “Not recommended,” Mark states, adding “Emphatically not a good idea.” He goes on to tell me that standard procedure is that those caught bringing contraband cigars into the U.S. will not only be arrested, but their car will be impounded. Oh, well. Plenty of good smokes on this side of the border - and after a few days experiencing this dynamic, lively Motor City that is truly undergoing a Renaissance, I just couldn’t bring myself to let that happen to a perfectly good automobile. SMOKE - Spring, 2005   |