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Summer 97 Volume II Issue 3 |
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Summer 97 Volume II Issue 3 |
The Cuban Cigar Factory began at the end of 1994 when Sharruf, who was living on his boat in San Diego, partnercd with longtime girlfriend Michelle Gentile and former criminal defense attorney David Baker. Both Sharruf and Baker had previously been working in the cigar field when they were introduced by a mutual friend who knew of their shared passion for cigars. Sharruf had been making and selling cigars in Las Vegas for the past decade, while Baker, who had done some tax-related tobacco work as an attorney, had begun selling cigars at wine festivals and swap meets about four years earlier.
The company began with just two cigar makers and the three partners. "We went from small to big very fast. We've never looked back. We went from that to now having over 20 cigar makers, two retail stores and factories in San Diego, Mexico and the Canary Islands," Baker says. "Now, we make 250,000 cigars per month." They've had no problems, he says, other than being able to keep up with demand, and keeping a steady supply of premium tobacco.
"When I came back from the Philippines, I went to cigar stores for three or four years trying to find a cigar I liked, one that I wanted to smoke, from Garcia to Madanada," Sharruf says. "I couldn't find one so I decided the only way to get what I wanted was to make them." Sharruf learned from his friend in Orange County, California, named Pablo Frias, a "maestro," or master cigar maker. "His company is Teri's Cigars, and I was buying from him, hanging out with him, and he was teaching me everything." The year was 1988, and Sharruf took what he learned and headed to Las Vegas, where he opened the Don Pablo cigar factory.
Before entering the cigar business, Sharruf, who wears a gold Rolex and sports a beard and long, gray-streaked hair in a pony tail, was living in the Philippines and running restaurants there and in Asia. Friends of his owned tobacco plantations in the Philippines. "I smoked good cigars there," Sharruf recalls. "As good as they could make them - but not as good as ours today."
"I got out towards end of 1990," Sharruf says of his first venture. "At that time, the cigar makers were making me crazy. They were hard to deal with. Even then, when there was no demand, they were a pain in the ass. They got drunk every night and wouldn't show up for work the next day."
The fecund stench of tobacco, both fresh and burning, hangs thick and heavy in the air at CCF's factory, a high-ceilinged, brick-walled, 10,000 square-foot warehouse in the produce section of San Diego's historic gaslamp district. A star-shaped, pink, yellow, and green pinata hangs on one wall. Natural light filters in through the many windows, controlled by pulleys, in the ceiling. Near the entrance, there's a thatched roof structure that serves as the office, where Michelle Gentile oversees the administrative end of the business. With its dried palm leaves and tropical colors, the CCF factory could be in the Canary Islands, where much of CCF's tobacco originates.
The two Davids' desks are nearby, as is a carved wooden cigar store Indian with full headdress. On Sharruf's desk are a humidor, boxes of cigars, and a few glass jars full of the same. Out in front, in the driveway, are their cars: Gentile's Jaguar sedan, adorned with a MS CIGAR license plate, and Sharruf's smoke-silver 500 SL Mercedes convertible. Baker, who carries the titles general manager and vice-president, is out of town on business.
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