78
TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
MAY/JUNE 2014
trench marketing
BY MICHAEL GELFAND
I
t’s often said that if you do what
you love, you’ll never work a day in
your life. One look at the evolution
of Ralph Alberto’s career since he first
started Fumé’s Cigar Shop & Lounge as
a hobby in Montclair, New Jersey nine
years ago proves that the axiom is true:
while he may literally be on the job more
and more, he’s working less and less in a
figurative sense.
Initially spawned by three friends’
collective passion for the cigar lounge
concept and their shared hope of
making—rather than losing—some extra
money on the side, Fumé’s has become
everything that Alberto hoped for. “We
thought [that] we wouldn’t have time to
do it full-time, but now it’s turned into
something really great,” he says.
Back in the beginning, Alberto and his
pals looked around the sprawling New
Jersey suburbia near New York City and
saw a gaping need for the shop that they
envisioned. “It seemed that nobody had
a place that was comfortable to shop
or smoke in,” he recalls. “They were all
lacking ambiance, so we decided we’d
create that space. We carried boutique
products that big stores didn’t carry,
we created a man-cave-type feel for
the lounge, and we made it a place
where people of all types could come
in and enjoy the company of a great
group of guys and buy the products
and accessories [that] they wouldn’t see
elsewhere. I’m not sure if we created or
filled a niche, but it worked.”
Membership
Has Its Privileges
Fumé’s storefront, located on
Montclair’s busiest thoroughfare, is
approximately 500 square feet, but
it is dwarfed by its 1,000-square-foot
membership cigar lounge in the back.
Decked out with dark paneled walls,
clubby arm and wingback chairs, gaming
tables, and wall-mounted TVs, the lounge
Fumé’s Cigar Shop & Lounge
Attention to social media channels and an unyielding focus on a
clubby lounge for loyal members constantly have customers coming
back for more.
