JackTales

Store offers old-fashion haven

Rebecca Martinez • Roving Reporter • March 6, 2010

Aaron Hutching of Staunton lights his cigar at Beverley Cigar Store on Friday. (Pat Jarrett/The News Leader)

STAUNTON —Even on a Thursday afternoon, there’s company in the smoking lounge at Beverley Cigar Store.

Proprietor Aaron Miller, 28, of Staunton, is seated in a leather easy chair, chatting with customer Greg Brown, 27, also of Staunton. Brown, nestled on the leather sofa, is taking a smoking break from his job at Mockingbird, and is puffing on a strong, sweet-smelling blend of tobacco he’d bought at the store earlier this week.

“It’s a hobby,” Brown says of smoking cigars and pipes. “It’s time alone to myself. If anything, it takes me away from anything else in my day. It’s ‘me’ time. It’s no distractions.”

The shop welcomes customers to take their purchases to go or to smoke in the lounge, which offers seating, television, wireless Internet and a high power ventilator above the door. Miller says the asthmatic wife of a customer once praised him for his ventilation, which he took to heart.

Brown says smoking is banned in the building where he lives, as in most local restaurants and bars, so he’s glad to have a place where he can smoke his pipe and enjoy the company of others, especially in the winter.

“Because of the new tobacco law … Aaron is giving an outlet to us all who can’t smoke at home,” Brown says, explaining that it takes at least an hour to smoke a pipe or cigar. “Being forced to smoke outside is no fun whatsoever.”

Brad Arrowood of Staunton smokes his cigar next to the humidor on Friday at Beverley Cigar Store in Staunton, which recently opened. (Pat Jarrett/The News Leader)

Brown is one of several regular customers who has told Miller that he’d stolen their idea of opening a cigar shop downtown. The young owner, always sharply dressed in a suit vest and pants, says the idea came to him when he tired of driving to Charlottesville or Harrisonburg to buy pipe tobacco he could blend.

“There’s not a place like that here,” he remembers thinking. “I wonder if that could work.”

It seems to be. On weekend evenings especially, the shop fills up with customers, mostly men, who sit around watching the plasma television mounted above the electric fireplace and chat.

Two glass cases — cigar humidors — line the right-hand wall of the shop. Miller says he keeps high-quality lines from popular brands in his shop as well as limited edition lines, but said he’s eager to help customers find something they’ll like. The selection is arranged in the humidors by strength. Mounted in front of each box in his humidors is a laminated card Miller inscribed with a description of the cigar and information about its origin, strength, wrapper, binder and filler tobacco. All the cigars are additive-free.

he selection ranges from one to eight years old and about $3 (Cuban Rejects) to $18 (Cohiba Churchills) in price, the average costing about $7.

“Everybody knows cigars can be expensive, but cigars are hand-crafted and works of art. The same kind of care goes into a bottle of wine,” says Miller, who independently researched cigars from tobacco seed, to wrapping, to fermentation for two years before opening the shop. “It’s hard not to fall in love with these when you look behind them.”

Matthew Casiday of Staunton smokes his cigar at Beverley Cigar Store on Friday. (Pat Jarrett/The News Leader)

Miller cuts a long, thin green cigar, lights it and takes a puff. It’s his first time sampling a Candela, a cigar his neighbor requested he carry. Candelas were popular in the 1950s, but are harder to come by now.

“Back then, you weren’t anyone if you weren’t smoking one of these,” Miller says, adding that it was a favorite of Clint Eastwood’s. “It’s kind of sweet, like a morning breakfast.”

Brown tries a puff.

“Yeah, not bad for two bucks.”

Miller says he caters to a “sophisticated audience” of various ages and races, mostly men — though he carries clove and sweet flavored cigars in hope of drawing women to the shop — who sit around the coffee table watching television and chewing the fat. Miller said conversation topics range from tobacco to history. Last week, they watched Olympic curling. All his customers express an interest in “finer things.”

“The shoppers that shop downtown are people that aren’t going to Wal-Mart,” Miller says, explaining that capturing this audience is a the goal for small businesses. “You have to offer what they don’t have or something that’s better than what they have or a different way.”

School teacher Michael Stilwell of Staunton takes a seat on Miller’s sofa after classes Thursday and puffed on the Perdomo Lot 23 cigar he’d bought previously.

“The lounge is very relaxing and attractive,” Stilwell says. “It’s a nice getaway. It’s really nice to have that in town.”

Miller offers him a can of soda, a service Stilwell suggested he offer during a previous visit.

“He takes your suggestions. If there’s something that you prefer, he will match that preference.”

His customers also appreciate Miller’s straightforwardness. He considers his individual-sale cigars a bargain, but whenever a customer requests a full box, Miller said he tells them to get it on the Internet. It’ll be cheaper.