Family-owned since 1991
Our Story
Where it all began — and why it's still the same family behind the counter.
Behind the counter"You wanna what?"
Gregg and I have been happily married for a really, really long time. We moved here in 1991 when we wanted a more diverse place for our daughters, Skye and MeeMee, to grow and learn. Gregg had a good friend named Steve, a wonderful Polish man we called Steve-O, who owned a cigar store in Huntington Beach — something we'd never really gotten into, at that point.
A year after hanging out and learning a bit about it, Gregg came home and said he wanted to open a cigar store. My response was, "You wanna what?" But when I saw the look in his eyes, I just knew we were going to open one. So we started looking for a location.
He kept going back to the corner where the shop is now, but wouldn't commit — two young daughters, a wife, a house, all the things that come with it. Then one day we drove past it and I saw that look again. And that was that.
— The Engels Family
A few good decades
Same corner, same family
West to the coast
The family moves to Oceanside, looking for somewhere by the water to raise two daughters.
"People like you need to be your own boss"
Gregg's grandfather Ed gave him the push. A friend's cigar store gave him the spark.
220 N. Coast Hwy
The doors open on Coast Highway — the same corner the shop calls home to this day.
Still independent, still here
Thirty-plus years on, the regulars feel like family and the door's always open.
People walk in for a cigar and leave with somewhere to belong.
That was always the point. The cigars are excellent — but the reason people keep coming back is the chair, the conversation, and the welcome.
