The Tony Davidoff Cigar Shop in
New York City
- An Interview with David Kitchens -
DAVID SAVONA: How did you enter the cigar business?
DAVID KITCHENS: My profession was physics. I was questions of her, and I asked a lot of questions of them. She ended up turning them down. Then they figured, OK, this guy is who we were looking for.
Q: Were you running Dunhill?
A: I was a mid-level guy. It was frustrating - I couldn't execute the way I wanted to execute. The Europeans had a brand name that was synonymous with tobacco; they became addicted to the sales of cigars, but they hated the fact that they were selling cigars. It's a good thing [I left] because now there's only one Dunhill store left in the country.
Q: So then you became manager of Gloucester Street Cigars in Boston.
A: They left the details up to me. I got the opportunity to supervise the build-out, so it really was my store when it was done. It was a beautiful store, it was elegant and it was a breath of fresh air. The first year we did really well. The store opened in late '96.
Q: That was a tough year to get good cigars. How did you stock up?
A: These guys had been warehousing. For two years, they had been purchasing products and setting them aside, so that when they opened they would have enough Fuentes, enough Ashtons, enough Dunhills to make a good business.
Q: How did you go from Gloucester Street to Davidoff?
A: It was September 2000. Al Remp got me here. He was the national sales manager for Davidoff. The [renovated Davidoff] store opened in April [2000], and they decided that they wanted to change directions.
Q: So what did you think? This is Madison Avenue, New York City.
A: This is a much sexier job. This is a very, very nice job. You can look out and see the world. What's nice about this industry is you can bring someone into a humidor and really get them what they want. They come here because they want to come here. They don't need to come here, they want to come here. And that's a very positive attitude that they bring to the store. Here, you come in, it's a beautiful store, it's in a wonderful part of Manhattan, and then you have customers who come in and they're positive. And you don't really see people that are spewing invectives and are really negative about things. They're here to get what they want, a little peace and quiet; they smoke a cigar and they become happy.
Q: What was your plan?
A: The first part of the plan was getting the lay of the land. When you looked at the client list in the computer, it was like a who's who list: journalists, actors, politicians. But the level of business we were doing didn't seem to meet the expectations of the size of the store. How do I develop a relationship with a client that fits in with that lifestyle? We begin to understand each other's tastes. It's a very complex relationship you need to develop with your clients. Once you do, you find that they become as much of an advertising resource for you as the newspaper or the Internet.
Q: What kind of experience are you trying to provide for your customers?
A: If someone comes in and says, I only smoke Cubans, or I only smoke this kind of cigar or that kind of cigar, what we try to do is say, "This cigar comes from this region, there's a certain style of tobacco used in the cigar you like. I don't have that cigar, but let me show you three or four different examples of cigars that have the same pedigree."
And that's important. They're transmitting their information to you, and they're excited. A lot of times when I go to a cigar store, I ask, what do you have from Nicaragua?
Some of them know where Nicaragua is, some of them don't. You can go into stores and get really good service, or you can go in and also have a really good experience. That's what we're trying to provide. When you leave here, you're confident you spent your money in the right place. And because of that, you want to come back again.
Q: How do you know if a customer is thirsty for knowledge, as opposed to those who just want to grab a cigar?
A: It's a sliding scale. A guy might come in and buy the same thing for months, and then one day ask, "What's new?" And some days people come in, they want to buy a cigar and then they'll leave, or sit and read the paper. And then someone will come in and walk back and forth and can t decide. And then you step in and make some recommendations.
It's an art. Walking up to a stranger can be self-defeating if you don't look at it in the right way. You never say, "Can I help you?" because they'll say no. It's automatic. You say, "Let me know if I can answer some questions for you." In the classic retail business there are ways to get permission from the customer to get you to help them.
Q: You just returned the other day from a trip to the Dominican Republic. Can you talk about that?
A: Some of our regular customers, we go down in February and we put an invitation out to people. We do some factory tours. It's really more of a lifestyle trip. Yeah, you're going to go to a factory, but it's also the food, the music, the visual of the city of Santiago, the region. From the mountaintop where we stay, you can see the fields, you can see Tamboril, the free zone in Santiago where General and Matasa and Fuente are located. You have a sense of scale what you're looking at, and what you smoke.
Q: You have a love for the Dominican Republic, and you go quite a bit, don't you?
A: Six or seven times a year. It's really difficult for me to understand anything unless I'm able to really get the inspiration why people make certain blends and make certain cigars. Without that knowledge, there's just something missing. It just becomes commerce. So you take a look at how people grow tobacco, how they handle tobacco, and you can see, among 90 percent of the manufacturers that I've seen, the love of the tobacco, and that whole region is reflected in what you smoke. It's amazing to me, when you connect customers and friends to that, just the impact you get.
Q: Have these trips added to your enjoyment of the product as well as your understanding?
A: Absolutely. You get an understanding about the lifestyle of the tobacco grower and the cigar manufacturer. When you go down to visit them, they do take the time to introduce you to what they're doing, especially when I'm paying my own way down there. It's a great time. You stop and you have a beer with somebody and you smoke a cigar, and it's a whole other experience.
Q: Are you at your happiest there?
A: It's fun, it's laid back, and you're under no pressure. I wouldn't use "happiness," because I'm happy pretty much most of the time. In February, when you're faced with the cold up here, and there it's 85 degrees, and someone's bringing you a beer that's got frost on it and you're smoking a really good cigar, it's hard to compete with that.
Q: Let's talk about the market. How do you feel about the American cigar market right now?
A: It's growing. In actual number of units, we're seeing a steady increase in the number of cigars we're selling. We've tried different types of non-tobacco products. They help supplement the business, but the actual consumption of cigars at our location is up. Last year, we were up 4 percent.
Q: So despite the smoking ban in New York, you're selling more cigars?
A: Yes.
Q: Where are they smoking?
A: I think there is an accommodation and you see [more] people smoking at home. Cigars are such a social thing that we find that a lot more wives and girlfriends are tolerant of it in the home or around the home than before. We have a guy who comes in the store - he's in New York five or three days a week - his wife comes with him, and she was saying, "Yes, I tolerate these stinky things in the house." And I said, "Good for you." It is really a détente that is going on in the household. There is a certain accommodation - it is no longer black and white. And I think it's really good to see it.
Q: What kind of cigars are people buying now?
A: People are buying fantastic cigars. I remember reading an article about the Don Nobodies, that after the boom someone said there aren't going to be any more Don Nobodies out there. That couldn't have been further from the truth, when you see something like Tatuaje, which in their minds is a Don Nobody, or Padilla, or Pepin Garcia, or the limited releases that are coming out of places like La Aurora and Altadis and Matasa and Fuente. The quality is there. You have a division in the market between the traditional tobacconists and the catalog houses, and gone are the days when you can see a very inexpensive catalog cigar that is equal to or better than a tobacco shop cigar.
Q: Where do you think you'd be right now if you hadn't joined the cigar business?
A: Oh, I'd probably be experiencing my second heart attack if I had stayed on the track that I did after graduating college. I looked at the people who were 20 years ahead of me. It was: "I'm on my second heart attack, I'm on a cholesterol drug, and I'm on my second or third marriage." The industry I was in was very, very stressful. You were rewarded with money, but your job satisfaction wasn't there.
Most Recent Forum Post
