PCA Magazine 2022 Show Issue

PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG VOLUME 2 2022 | PCA The Magazine 35 ESTLED ALONGSIDE theOzark Mountain range in the northwest corner of Arkansas, Fayetteville is a picturesque communitywith a small-town feel and big-industry mentality. Home to theUniversity of Arkansas as well as the headquarters ofWalmart, Tyson Foods and J.B. Hunt Trucking, the town of around 90,000 is a destination for retirees, students, industry giants and everyone in between—an ideal description for a cigar-minded entrepreneur. That’s part of the reasonBrian and SharonWaters openedOpen Door Cigars &Pipes in 2014. Theirmission statement, “Open the door, get out of theHoly Spirit’s way, and love people for who they are,” carries throughout their store and their lives. “Wehave adevout passion to reachout to the community and provide awelcoming atmosphere, wherewe canshare relaxing conversationand relationship,” they say. “Wehavebeencalled into thiswonderful endeavorwhere everyone cancome inand feel like they are at homewith family.” PCA caught upwithBrian to talk about their passion for business and theirmission for a lifewell-lived. — PCA: Let’s start with a little background. Howdid you get into the cigar industry? Brian: I spent a career in law enforcement. I was still on the job at Fayetteville PoliceDepartment in 2013. I came home tomywife Sharon one day and said, “Hey, let’s chat aminute.” Faith is very important to us and I said, “I feel likeGod’s called us to open a cigar shop.” I kind of expected her to pull off her flip-flops and start beatingme on the head. Sharon had worked in City Hall for 33 years at that point and I’d been on the job 26 years. So neither one of us had ever been in regular business. But as soon as I said it, she said, “I wondered how long it was going to take you.” I said, “What!?” And she said, “Yeah, I’ve known. I’mwaiting on you.” There’s no backing out at that point. So we took the next year and I put together a team to help us flesh out what kind of vision we wanted. We wrote the business plan through the rest of 2013, and we got the shop open onMay 3, 2014. We’re now celebrating our 8th anniversary. In fact, we had been open 11 weeks to the day when I stepped onto the then-IPCPR trade show floor bymyself in 2014. My shop at the time had 65 boxes of cigars. That’s all I had. You want to talk about lost. Have you ever seen themovie Trading Places with EddieMurphy and Dan Aykroyd? There’s the scene where they’re going on the stock exchange and Dan Aykroyd gives hima talk ... Don’t let them see you sweat. It is kill or be killed. Law of the jungle. Getting all ramped up. And the second that the bell rings, the place goes nuts. That’s what it felt like when the doors of the trade show opened. I was like, “Oh, crap.” — What was your biggest challenge starting out? ThankGod for an extremely smart wife.When I retired from the police department, I was a lieutenant in special operations. So I had plenty of leadership experience, but no business experience. Sharon, with her work in civil service, sheworkedwith budgets, understood expense control. So, forme, just learning how tomanage a business. That’s why I created a teamthat we nowcall our board of directors. It’s three guys, all much smarter, muchwiser. Sowe operate as if they’re a true board of directors when in reality they’re an advisory board. It was also a challenge to learn about the industry, which is unique. I don’t think itmatches a whole lot of other industries out there. It’s very antiquated in a lot of ways. You can still walk in cigar shops around the nation, likewe all do, and you see that some of them literally don’t have a POS, they have no inventory control. Prettymuch taking the cash home at the end of the day and calling that a day’s work. So the challenge forme personallywas just really learning business and retail merchandising. — We talk to a lot of retailers about how to expand out from just the cigar shop. So what was your thought with Suite Seven, your separate but connected private club? Suite Sevenwas part of the original business plan but we didn’t thinkwe’d be able to get to it for several years.We actually opened it about 10months in. I didn’t want what you and I typically see as a cigar bar.What I wantedwas a cigar shopwhere you could get a really nice cocktail, bourbon or scotch, whatever. But it’s a cigar shop, not a cigar bar. We saw that the peoplewho really support premiumcigars would love to have a cocktail with their cigar, but they don’t want to hang out in a loud bar environment. So Suite Seven really looks like a turn-of-the-century English gentleman’s club. Bookshelves, darkwoods, leather, low lamp light, that kind of a feel, but you can sit six feet away frompeople at any time of day even if we’re full and carry on a conversation. Alongwith Suite Seven, we have another lounge calledTheDen. That’s just a straight cigar lounge on the open door side. And then you go through a hidden bookcase door to get to Suite Seven. So it has the thing of exclusivity without being exclusive. And we showeverybody how to get through that door. — Why did youmove so quickly to open Suite Seven?Was it just that the success was there and you just thought it was the right time? A lot of it was that I needed the N