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Red Rooster Opens Its Doors As Town's First Cigar Lounge

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BY T. WYATT

Many good ideas have been born on a lake over a cold beer, a fishing pole, and

a can of worms. Such is the case with Newtown's newest small business, the Red

Rooster Tobacconist, a classy little cigar lounge in the Queen Street Shopping

Center.

Its founders and co-proprietors Todd Suhar, Dean Fattibene, Mike Zavatsky, and

Brendan Carson -- all Newtown High School grads in the late '80s -- dreamed up

the idea for a cigar lounge one afternoon last summer while fishing off Mr

Fattibene's dock.

Less than a year later, Newtown's first cigar lounge became a reality. Nestled

conveniently between People's Bank and the Dynasty Chinese restaurant near the

Big Y, Red Rooster has attracted scores of customers in its first three weeks.

The store has already doubled its inventory on special requests and taken in

an entire stock of pipes and pipe tobaccos as well, while offering its

customers some of the best cigar prices in the state.

"Our priority wasn't to open a store and start putting cash into our pockets,"

said Mr Suhar. "We try to satisfy our customers first and worry about profits

later. We want to build a clientele. I can't say with certainty, but our cigar

prices are lower than anybody else's around."

The Red Rooster, named after Newtown's trademark bird, stocks all the big-name

cigars like Arturo Fuente, romeo y julieta, Macanudo, Cohiba, and Montecristo,

as well as several other brands. If they don't have the one you like, they'll

bend over backwards to get it.

"If you look at a lot of the cigar stores around, they tell their customers

that they have to keep their prices high because cigars are so hard to get,"

Mr Suhar said. "That's not really the truth. It's just a lot of work to do it.

And because there are four of us, we can get it done."

In addition to offering the area's best cigar selection, the Red Rooster also

offers cigarettes, pipes and pipe tobacco, snuff, and other accessories as

well as a warm and friendly atmosphere.

The shop is decorated in a hunter green and burgundy motif with leather

nail-head furniture on which to relax, and a satellite television with 999

channels. The Rooster boys invite their customers to stay, smoke a cigar, and

maybe enjoy a complementary cocktail like a beer, a glass of wine, port, or

cognac.

"This place is just what Newtown needed," said Jeremy Terwilliger, an early

morning customer who brings in a cup of coffee and enjoys a cigar over The

Wall Street Journal while watching the stock ticker on the TV. "I'd rent a

room here if they'd let me."

Actually, this attitude was just exactly what the owners had in mind when Todd

Suhar dreamed up the idea last summer.

Mr Suhar, a legal assistant, had first seen the cigar club phenomenon on a

business trip to Seattle. He saw it again in Kansas City. And then, that

fateful day, he pitched it to his buddies.

Though none of the four even smoked cigars, they all agreed that it was a fun

business idea and attacked it full blast.

"We looked around Newtown for a place to buy cigars and the one place we found

wasn't really adequate," Mr Zavatsky explained. "The prices were high and the

owners swarmed on you like vultures."

Added Mr Fattibene, "We recognized that the quality, and the way they stored

their cigars, wasn't top notch. We then knew that we could corner the market

with a great location, better prices, and a better condition of cigars. That's

when the idea started steamrolling."

Last fall, Mr Zavatsky slipped into the office in the plaza, following a site

worker through a locked door, and spoke with a woman about available space. A

few weeks later they sealed the deal.

Now the four had to learn all they could about cigars. As though cramming for

a college midterm, the guys all took up cigar smoking, researched cigars in Mr

Suhar's apartment, and visited smoke shops all over New York and New England.

"At one point were thinking about canning the whole idea because everybody was

telling us how hard it was to get good cigars," Mr Suhar said. "They were dead

wrong."

Though their shop seems to be a big hit in its infant stages, the four

partners aren't quitting their day jobs just yet. In fact, all four maintain

their full time jobs while running the shop as a hobby.

Mr Suhar is a legal assistant, Mr Zavatsky runs his own oxygen business, Mr

Fattibene manages a car rental business, and Mr Carson runs activities for

international students at Bridgeport University.

"We don't have real career goals in mind, as far as this store," Mr Carson

explains. "We all want different things out of it. We really just want to

learn how to run a successful business. This will probably open a lot of doors

in the future."

The Rooster is open from 10 am until 8 pm Monday through Friday, 9 to 8 on

Saturday, and 7 to 5 pm on Sundays. But just about any night of the week you

can walk past the shop after hours and see the four amigos hanging out

watching a ballgame and having a smoke. Just knock.

Asked if they ever look around in awe of what they've started, the four

partners, as if rehearsed, answer in stereo, "All the time."

"We have a place here where people can come after work or on the weekends, or

at lunchtime to discuss business," Mr Suhar concluded. "Some people aren't

allowed to smoke in their offices or their homes or in their cars. This is one

place where the smokers of the town are welcome all the time."

The Red Rooster's Grand Opening will be Saturday, March 21.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.