EAST BAY INSOMNIAC

STOGIE’S SMOKE SHOP & HOOKAH HUT

3288 Pierce St., Albany (inside the Pacific East Mall) • 558-1510

FEATURES:

• hookah rentals & bar
• billiards room
• big screen TV
• Middle-Eastern and hip-hop music
• complete headshop: bongs, pipes, papers, etc. available ’til 1AM! (see picture below)
• domestic & imported cigars and cigarettes (smoking allowed)

From their website: A hookah is a Middle Eastern water pipe fueled by a variety of fruit flavored molasses. There are no chemicals or drugs added, and what’s more, the water filters out all but 1% of the nicotine normally inhaled from an entire pack of cigarettes. Voted “Mellowest Smoke Shop of 2005” by The East Bay Express.

AVAILABLE FLAVORS: apple, apricot, banana, bubblegum, cherry, grape, jasmine, lemon, licorice, mango, melon, mint, orange, peach, rose, and strawberry, as well as our own “exotic house blends”

PRICES:

• $10/person Sunday - Thursday (includes hookah rental, DJ and pool)
• $15/person Friday - Saturday (includes hookah rental, DJ and pool)
• just hookah rental:  $10.00 minimum for 1-2 smokers, and $5.00 for each additional smoker after that; cover charge is waived
• just pool tables:  $10.00/hour; cover charge is waived

OPEN UNTIL: 1AM (Thurs-Sat) • 9PM (Sun-Wed)

PARKING: lot

THE EBI REVIEW:

Without sounding politically incorrect, Asians know how to get down after dark. Witness the Koryo strip-mall where one can partake of sushi, BBQ, computers and karaoke past 2AM. I thought that was pretty spectacular until one day I strayed beyond the Pearl Tea and Engrish stationery of the Pacific East Mall to the corridors that went from Hello Kitty to Hello Kind Bud. OK, minor exaggeration. There’s no cannabis co-op at the P.E.M. (yet), but if you’re a card-carrying member (or not), you can get all your smoking supplies at Stogie’s Smoke Shop.

I’ve been looking for something just like this place. Stogie’s is the epitomy of East Bay Insomniac, really. I’m holding it in that high a regard. Those Yelp reviewers can be a bit harsh, and I’ll address their allegations shortly. But honestly, not even on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley can you buy a bong (er, tobacco water pipe) at 1AM. Even non-smokers have got to appreciate that.

Stogie’s Smoke Shop and Hookah Hut is located towards the back of the Pacific East Mall, so if you park and enter through the neon “Ranch 99″ signs, just loop around to the rear. You’ll know you’re approaching it because older Asian ladies with recently live eel in shopping carts will be replaced by an array of young suburban-type thugs loitering in gender-segregated threesomes.

You enter into what appears like any other headshop: pipes, flasks, smokes, a neon-lit Western Union sign indicating “we’re on the level!” The counters and shelves are crammed with colorful paraphrenalia. Glass cases contain imported cigars. Most of the patrons–who looked between 16 and 20 (the site says 18+)–made a purchase and left. I watched as three females tendered money, received nothing and disappeared toward the back of the store and up some stairs. This piqued my curiosity.

The very back of Stogie’s is the Hookah Hut–a small area with a TV and some chairs resembling a Tiki bar. During my Thursday night investigation, this area was populated by exactly one older Asian gentleman who was attired in such a way to suggest he was on break from waitering at one of the many P.E.M. late-night restaurants. He was smoking a regular cigarette. Stogie’s is one of the few places you can smoke indoors. For the record, I’m against smoking tobacco indoors, but in some sort of Douglas Coupland Gen-X way, I’m also fascinated by the concept of smokers as marginalized citizens and I support them having a few square feet of space with which to slowly kill themselves.

At this point, I attracted the manager and owner’s attention. Their names are Jay (no relation to me) and Zee, respectively, and they were really friendly. They seemed eager to get the word out that their place existed, and I’m happy to help. Jay said that on Fridays and Saturdays about 150 people packed the space upstairs. This being Thursday, I encountered only about a dozen or so patrons. It was dimly lit and I didn’t have the requisite 3-person posse that would allow me the enboldened privilege of a lingering gaze, but I’d be hard-pressed to ID any of them as over 21. I was interested in the groupings: 3 Fillipino girls on a hookah, 3 Asian guys far away on another hookah, 3 black guys playing pool in a private room, and two groups of 3 multi-ethnic guys playing pool in the main room. I was the only white guy, the only single person, and probably the only one over 21. I realized it’s not just the younger-looking people that creates the feel of an Under 21 establishment–it’s the segregated vibe. As the Yelp crew reported, this crowd seemed likely to be sporting a tramp stamp or two. If you multiplied the clientele for the weekends, you might have more of a Hooker Hut than a Hookah Hut. But on the night I stopped by, it just seemed like maybe the guys were too young or nervous to try to talk to the girls. This could be a good thing if you’re looking for a comfortable place to just smoke some fruity molasses without cruising.

On that note, this is an enormous, comfortable, secret space consisting of two rooms of red vinyl cushions for smoking and two rooms with several pool tables. I don’t smoke tobacco, and the idea of smoking something flavored like bubblegum is about as appealing as eating fish maw-flavored Pocky (and I love me some Pocky, too). I’m also not given to putting my lips on a communal hookah mouthpiece, as that brings back bad memories of my brief 6th grade fling with Annie the CPR dummy. That said, if you’re into trying something new in the deeper depths of the East Bay (oh Albany!), comfortable with an under-30 (maybe under-20) crowd, and sans asthma, you should check this place out. Between the headshop and the hookahs, they’re providing a service you can’t get after dark east of the Bay Bridge. I’d like to see Stogie’s stick around.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Albany, Billiards & Cards, Hookahs, Under 21. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.