Holt's Cigar Company, Retail Store
1522 Walnut Street
Mon - Fri, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m., Saturdays, 10 a.m. -5 p.m., free
(215) 732-8500
www.holts.com
Holt's Cigar Company loves its customers, especially those who are white, fiftysomething Republicans who understand the value of a $2,000 fountain pen. The cigar store has the feeling of a second home. Holt's employees love and respect people for who they are inside, not for what they smoke.
Cigars are serious business at Holt's. The cigars are housed in a room kept at exactly 70 percent humidity for maximum freshness. And the subtly classy decor, which includes life-size replicas of Native Americans, may not have any effect on the taste of the cigars, but it certainly adds to the ambience.
Holt's wants you to enjoy the Holt's experience. Feel free to smoke a cigar (all the employees do) and relax in the lounge. Enjoy a diverse and mind-expanding reading selection: Wine Spectator Magazine, Forbes and several commemorative coffee table books about the Reagan era. Understand the world of difference between a cigar smoker and a cigarette smoker. In fact, be careful not to mention cigarettes; you wouldn't want to bear the brunt of contempt, discrimination and just a little bit of hatred.
But don't be fooled by the name or the general attitude of the employees, because Holt's cigar shop sells all kinds of cancer-related paraphernalia: pipes, matches, chewing tobacco ("chaw"). They even sell coffee and fountain pens. Though it may have the feel of an old gentleman's club, they are, by no means, soulless. In fact, generic smokers beware: they don't support Philip Morris and other mainstream tobacco companies, choosing instead to encourage additive-free, all-natural tobacco. Holt's is cigar vending just as one has always dreamed -- accepting, loving and with a definitive moral conscience. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a family like Holt's.
