Jimmy Cigars

October 11 1942 – June 10 2011

A man who will forever leave his mark on the cigar industry but more importantly in the hearts of so many people.  You will be missed but never forgotten.

September 1973: I couldn’t stand working construction anymore, there were too many memories of my father.  I went to my boss and told him I quit.  That seems like a long time ago. Looking back on that decision, I sit here now, a successful business man, and remember how impossible that seemed the day I opened this store and made only $56.  I had taken a second mortgage against my house to fund the business and all I had was

a piece of paper with a hand drawn image of what my store was going to look like.

The first store front I had measured about 450 sq ft. I got up every morning and asked myself what I had done. I’d had a bright future in the construction business but that was what other people had planned for me, not what was supposed to happen. Rain, sleet or snow, I got up every day, six days a week and opened my store in the Market Place on Greenwich Avenue. Seven years later I moved to my current location on Havemeyer Place, across the street from the police station.

About six months after I opened up on the Avenue, the largest tobacconist in New England opened up 400 feet from me. That’s like Starbucks opening up next to a mom and pop coffee shop; the Starbucks will put mom and pop out of business; not in my case. I’m still here and David P Ehrlich of Boston is long gone.  Over these years I have formed many great friendships with my customers, met many interesting people, Zino Davidoff, Mohammad Ali, Leroy Neiman, Jack Parr, Ralph Kiner, Bobby Bonillia, Karlfried Nordman, Terry Bradshaw to name a few, and have enjoyed every minute of my experience in the tobacco business.

I have a table at Rao’s the second Tuesday of every month and have enjoyed many laughs and meals with close friends and acquaintances downtown on 114th St and Pleasant Ave.

We have a Friday Night Club where invited members enjoy cigar dinners, BBQ’s, golf outings and dinners at the store. Members are fined $10 for every miss, the only excuse to miss is if you’re dead.

To sum it up, this is a place of luxury, laughs, and smoking. You get what you see and that’s it.

Jimmy Cigars

A tradition of Fairfield county’s premier smoking lounge/cigar bar that will continue for generations to come.