The Crier

Golden Smoke Rings

How hookah lounges could mimic the coffeehouse’s cultural and commercial success

Alex Dziadosz · The Exchange · Jan 29, 2007

We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,

We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,

And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,

With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth,

— “The Ballad of the King’s Jest,” Rudyard Kipling

When Kipling sat down to pen the above verses at the turn of the 19th century, he hardly could have foreseen the hookah’s recent Western rise. But one of globalization’s most entertaining quirks is its tendency to create novel — though often natural — cross-cultural couplings. India and Excel spreadsheets. Japan and Christmas. Ann Arbor and shisha.

The hookah, also called nargeela and ghanyan, is associated most closely with Middle Eastern and Indian cultures. Yet it’s no novelty to the Western Hemisphere. Hookah lounges have graced neighborhoods in Los Angeles and New York for decades — mostly thanks to those cities’ Arab immigrants. Other theories trace its origin to Native Americans.

In recent years, the pipe’s popularity has spiked along America’s coasts and within other culturally liberal hubs. Droves of the young and trendy have become enamored of its ability to relax body and conversation, consuming it as eagerly as provisional Buddhism and George Harrison’s solo career.

Red Light Center, an online gaming community, has added shisha, along with pot, to their world’s assortment of smokable substances.

Given America’s dual passion for smoking tobacco and commoditizing cultural ephemera, it’s surprising that we have yet to see a chain hookah lounge.

If you want further proof of the hookah’s appeal, check any student living room along Packard or South Division. Chances are, you’ll find one as regularly as mismatched furniture and empty beer bottles.

The University’s love of all things multicultural strengthens the hookah’s campus presence. Students return from summers in Cairo, Jerusalem or (less ambitiously) Dearborn, to festoon coffee tables and shelves with intricate pieces.

Given America’s dual passion for smoking tobacco and commoditizing cultural ephemera, it’s surprising that we have yet to see a chain hookah lounge. It’s even more surprising that Ann Arbor, as fertile a ground as any for hookah success, lacks a true shisha bar.

What spots like Rendezvous Café get wrong is the atmosphere. Company and conversation are the essence of hookah smoking. Comfort, mood and lighting are essential.

Café Oz misses the mark as well. Its pillowed seating is a step in the right direction, but there isn’t enough of it. And on most nights, the rest of the club feels more like Studio 4 than anywhere you would want to recline. Shisha is little more than cultural garnish.

Campus needs something with softer seats and lighting than Rendezvous, but more relaxing than Oz. Good coffee wouldn’t hurt, either. East Lansing has such a place. So does Columbus. If a hookah lounge can find success among the University’s more culturally conservative rivals, why not here?

An interested entrepreneur might look to the careers of Starbucks’ founding class for inspiration. Consider the state of the American coffeehouse in the mid ’80s: popularity along the coasts, and a sea of untapped potential in between.

Sound familiar? The pre-Starbucks coffeehouse and the modern hookah lounge strike surprisingly similar figures.

A recent MSNBC article article even described a Seattle-area lounge as, “Starbucks, but with smoke.”

Starbucks was successful because the corporation realized atmosphere was as much of a product as their drinks. Lighting, artwork and seating are standardized. A Starbucks in the East Village provides much the same experience as one in a Topeka strip mall.

A hookah chain that duplicates this business model could meet similar success.

Cigarettes string us out. Caffeine makes us twitch. Shisha merely imbues us with a pleasant light-headedness

Of course, there could be problems.

Public smoking regulation is becoming increasingly draconian. Paradoxically, this will be most threatening in liberal areas like California and New York where hookah enjoys its greatest popularity.

But hookah lounges have already weathered several brushes with tobacco regulation. Although the dangers of shisha smoke are on par with that of cigarettes, public perception has yet to catch up. And unlike restaurants and bars, hookah bars cater exclusively to smokers, meaning you are less likely to harm unsuspecting toddlers.

There is also the relatively fast pace of American life to consider. Many of our most persistent vices are stimulants. Cigarettes string us out. Caffeine makes us twitch. Shisha merely imbues us with a pleasant light-headedness. But with Smokeshop magazine estimating an increase of 300 hookah bars in the last six years, this doesn’t seem to be slowing the pipe’s popular ascendance.

Given Pita Pit’s terrifying mascots and subpar fare, we might assume it will close within the next year. Any budding capitalists would do well to look into State Street real estate prices.