{"id":12004,"date":"2025-10-23T02:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T02:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/12004\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T02:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T02:49:12","slug":"smokies-tobacco-shop-opens-second-cigar-lounge-in-reading-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/12004\/","title":{"rendered":"Smokies Tobacco Shop opens second cigar lounge in Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smokies Tobacco Shop has opened its second cigar lounge in Reading.<\/p>\n

Smokies\u2019 newest location celebrated its grand opening in October in the Berks County Trust Co. building at 35 N. Sixth St. in downtown Reading.<\/p>\n

The self-styled boutique tobacco shop and joint venture by brothers Ahmed Sheikh and Jay Akram opened its first location in the Berkshire Mall in 2007. A cigar lounge on Lancaster Avenue in Reading opened in 2021.<\/p>\n

Smokies prides itself on having the largest selection of tobacco and vapor products and accessories in the area, according to its website.<\/p>\n

Its selection includes various forms of chewing, rolling and pipe tobacco, accessories and more, such as imported Dokha tobacco, cigarillos, hookahs and shisha blends.<\/p>\n

Smokies also offers a walk-in humidor with an array of imported and domestic hand-rolled cigars, as well as the owners\u2019 own \u201cMonogramme\u201d brand cigars.<\/p>\n

\"SmokiesSmokies Tobacco Shop has opened its second Berks County location at 35 N. Sixth St. (BILL UHRICH\/MEDIANEWS GROUP)<\/p>\n

The new lounge is in the former home of Meridian Bank in Reading.<\/p>\n

Shuman Development Group underwent a $13 million project to restore the building<\/a>, which now contains apartments, office space and a food court, in addition to Smokies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s another great business in downtown Reading,\u201d Shuman said of Smokies at the ribbon cutting.<\/p>\n

The lounge is stocked with recliners, an 86-inch television, shuffle board and pool tables.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a different vibe than our lounge on Lancaster Avenue,\u201d Jay Akram said in an Instagram post. \u201cThis is more of a private lounge.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also has a coffee bar featuring espresso, cappuccino and affogato, or ice cream topped with espresso and caramel, all crafted with beans imported from Italy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put a lot of time and effort and hard work into this lounge,\u201d Ahmed Sheikh said in an Instagram post.<\/p>\n

Smokies also sells individual memberships, which grant access to a member locker at the lounge. The lockers are humidified and lined with Spanish cedar to maintain the cigars\u2019 freshness, Smokies website says.<\/p>\n

Membership perks include two free cigars every month, free BYOB privileges, 10% off all cigar purchases and 20% off all cigar box purchases.<\/p>\n

Smokies\u2019 new lounge is open Monday through Friday from noon to 7 p.m. The lounge can be reserved for private events on Saturdays and Sundays.<\/p>\n

\"SmokiesSmokies Tobacco Shop has opened its second Berks County location at 35 N. Sixth St. (BILL UHRICH\/MEDIANEWS GROUP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smokies Tobacco Shop has opened its second cigar lounge in Reading. Smokies\u2019 newest location celebrated its grand opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,60,182,28,736,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-12004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-reading","13":"tag-reading-city","14":"tag-reading-city-headlines","15":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}