Earlier this week I put together a quick blog post talking about a deal I got at my local cigar shop. We received a handful of comments on the subject with each person sharing stories of their own local deals.
One comment, made by George, sparked a side discussion about Memberships. I was curious of the benefits he received as a member of his club and what his annual cost was.
I won’t pretend to know what the average membership cost is across the country. Instead, I’ll focus on what my membership at Sir Stogies costs and the benefits I receive. Perhaps afterwards we can compare notes and see what typical membership amenities include.
An annual membership at Sir Stogies costs $200. This includes access to the private lounge, via key-card, from 9:00am until 12:00pm – 365 days per year. Members receive 5% off single stick purchases and 10% off box purchases. For an additional $50 per year members can rent a locker in a humidified room.
So far, this is all pretty standard stuff. The one big difference I’ve seen with Sir Stogies is that Members receive free lunch / dinner on Sunday. The meal is almost always home-cooked (unless the owners are out of town – then they usually provide pizza). Soda and beer are also put out, free of charge.
There is an annual dinner held in March which includes gourmet food and cigars. Members are given priority and pay $40 to attend. If there are any tickets remaining they are sold to the public (very few tickets remain after they go on sale to the members) for $60 per ticket.
I couldn’t really guess as to the size of the private lounge but it includes two sofas (one of which has two built-in recliners), three reclining chairs, a card table (which seats four very comfortably), computer desk, dart board, bristle board, pool table, big-screen television (with a premium cable package), bathroom, and a kitchen (sink, microwave, refrigerator, and kuerig). All in all, it is a beautiful space with a lot of warm hardwood.
Given the area (a lot of blue-collar workers), I think $200 per year is a fair price to pay for the benefits received. Sure, I’d love to see a bigger discount but I’m not upset with 5%. My one and only gripe is that I wish the lounge either opened earlier or went to 24 hour access. For a guy that leaves the house at 4:30am for work, having to wait until 9:00am on the days that I work from home feels like an eternity.
What would you pay for a Private Lounge Membership
and what benefits would you expect to recieve?
And then there’s this http://clubleafandbean.com/membership/ You don’t want to know what it costs, You can’t afford it. If I could I would.
Nice looking place but you are right, I don’t want to know what it costs….
I work at Burns Tobacconist. We have offered memberships for years (I was a member long before I became an employee) but a couple years ago it was changed to be much more favorable to the hardcore cigar smoker. Basically, members get charged $100 to $250 per month on the first day of each month; that money then gets added to their membership card, which acts as a gift card for making purchases in the store. Members get 5% off all single sticks, plus a range of 12% to 20% off box purchases (anyone off the street gets 10% off boxes…and we count any 20 sticks, in a box or mix-and-match, as a box for the discounting purposes). Members all get lockers and access to the member lounge, which has 20 or so leather chairs, plus the barstools, waiter service from the bar and restaurant next door (attached), free play on the pool table, 3 big screen TVs, and finally a dinner once a month on the evenings we have our monthly event. All in all, a pretty unbeatable deal…as long as a person spends $100 or more a month on cigars to begin with. If they don’t spend that much, there’s really no point in joining.
David,
Does anything change if you opt to go with $250 per month instead of $100 or does it just come to more money or your card to spend in the store?
At $100 per month, members get 12% off boxes; at $175, the discount jumps to 16%; at $250 per month, it’s 20%. That’s the biggest difference. There’s also a secondary room across the hall from the lounge; the highest level members are allowed to use that room for no charge for meetings. In the banks of lockers there is a row that is larger than the rest; top-level members get first dibs on those.
Here in Biloxi at The Cigar Shop our Private club is $275 per quarter or $1000 per year. For that we give 24/7 access to the club, use of a locker, use of glassware, ice, coffee etc. Free admission to any in store events, 15% off all purchases and a few other things. Our club has 1 very large tv flanked by 2 smaller ones, card table, plenty of comfortable furniture, WIFI and a few other amenities.
I’m beginning to feel spoiled with $200 per year for membership to my local club.
There is a relatively new shop in my general area Quartermasters (Frederick MD – about 20-30 mins from me) that offers 24/7 access. The cool thing is, you have the option to pay monthly at $25.
The monthly option is nice because it is one less thing you need to worry about coming due right after Christmas.
My lounge renews in January (they provide a grace period to ease the strain) which falls in line with various other dues (Gun Club, Archery Club, Etc).
I wish a cigar in my with a lounge heck I wish we just had a store. But it’s all good me and my buds get together once or twice a week to smoke and drink in my private cigar lounge I guess that have to do for but no membership fees maybe I should start charging more for cigars?
We have a nice cocktail/cigar bar in SF, the Occidental, nothing else in liberal SF that I know of compares.