Help This Poor Soul Start a Hookah Bar in Oregon

It’s hard enough to start a business. This excited young fella wants to start his own Hookah Bar in Eugene, Oregon and he wants to get a bit of support or words of encouragement. He is also wondering if it is a good idea to drop out of college to make the idea happen. Of course, I would say that he certainly should and that college is only preparing you for cubicle life, but I’m sure he’d rather hear what you have to say. Here’s his question:

I am an 18 year old college student, just about to finish his sophomore year in college. I am severely dissatisfied with school right now, and really have very little interest in continuing my education right now, although even if I go through with this, I would plan to go back to school within 3 or 4 years.

So here is the plan that has been brewing in my brain for the past few weeks. This is the first time I have actually put anything down in writing, so excuse me if it is a little bit rough around the edges.

The Plan

I live in Eugene Oregon, the land of the hippies. Hookah, the Middle Eastern smoking device, is very popular with college students in this area. I would like to provide a hookah bar where students can come, chill, study and smoke. I would also have small meals and coffee/tea for people who were there, although I don’t want to become a restaurant.

The other thing I should note is that I inherited a bit of money from my grandmother, and I think it would be enough to start this business with and keep it going until it is profitable. After the first few years I would find someone to manage it part time and go to school half time until I had finished my degree.

Am I crazy, or could this actually work? Am I missing anything big?

If you have a moment, drop by and give him some support or tell him how much of a dumbass he is being. It’s up to you. The link to his forum is here.

US Soldiers Smoking Some Shisha and Hookah in Iraq

Soldiers Smoking Hookah in IraqYou’ve got to love this. US Soldiers are smoking some shisha and a hookah out there in Iraq. I think that’s what they mean when they say “Cultural Understanding”. Although I think that it’s cool and all of them to be doing this, it would piss me off if this situation were reversed. Imagine Iraq was occupying the Good Ole’ US of A and all of the soldiers dropped into our Starbucks. I’d prolly lose my Chai Latte smile real quick.

Cool Smoke: Hookah Cafe’s The Hot New Thing

Here is a very cool article from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the takeoff of Hookahs in the USA. It has some cool ideas in it, and is one of the few articles I’ve seen in newspapers that doesn’t portray the hookah in a bad light. Thank God, someone is working to change the illusion that this is just a bong.

Cool smoke: Hookah cafes the hot new thing

By KIMBERLY EDDS Washington Post

Thursday, April 24, 2003

Los Angeles — Scott Nelson leans back in his chair as he blows smoke rings in the air. The smell of apple and peach tobacco inside the Gypsy Cafe, just steps away from the University of California campus, is so thick you can almost taste it as it escapes from the tall water pipes on top of nearly every table.

For hundreds of years, Middle Eastern men have flocked to water pipes — also known as hookahs or narghiles — to smoke fruit- flavored tobacco, talk and watch the world pass by. Now hookah houses are appearing in U.S. cities, including Jacksonville, Fla.; Evanston, Ill.; and Madison, Wis. (the Cafe Hookah, which opened about six months ago).

In college towns or big cities such as Chicago, San Diego and Washington, cafe owners want their walls bursting with trend-seeking college students and 20-somethings eager to try the newest thing and tell their friends about it.

“It’s just relaxing,” said Nelson, 19, who drives more than a half- hour every Friday night to hang out at the Gypsy.

“We’re addicted to the hookah,” said Catherine Rieder, 18, as she puffed away. “With a cigarette, you can take it with you, but with the hookah, you can only do it once in a while. It’s special.”

Nestled between a movie theater and a cookie store, the Gypsy Cafe, with the feel of an unhurried European coffee shop, attempts to seduce its clients with the taste of another world. Lush purple draperies envelop the richly textured walls, as hookahs — with elegant necks and glass bodies that seem to dance in the light — sit with their hoses wrapped around their necks like exotic snakes.

Hookah enthusiasts say tobacco smoked from the water pipe contains a small proportion of the nicotine and none of the tar and chemicals found in American cigarettes. But health officials aren’t ready to give the hookah their seal of approval.

Several studies indicate that hookah smoke contains significant amounts of nicotine and high amounts of arsenic and other heavy metals, said Tom Houston, director of science and community health advocacy for the American Medical Association. Incidences of lip and tongue cancer among hookah users are reasonably high, and the effect on the heart of using hookahs is the same as cigarette smoking, he said.

And Houston worries about young people who develop a taste for nicotine through smoking a hookah, and “when they can’t find a hookah bar they borrow a cigarette, and there they go.”

The flavored mixture, shishah, is tobacco combined with fruit and molasses or honey. Flavors include mint, jasmine and mango. Double apple — a mixture of red and green apples — remains a bestseller.

Tobacco is placed on a metal plate with a hole in the bottom that connects to a water-filled metal container below and is heated by special charcoal. When the smoker inhales, smoke travels through the water, down the tube and into the smoker’s mouth. The result, enthusiasts say, is a delicious assault on the senses that has none of the harshness of cigarette or cigar smoking.

And the experience is easy on the pocketbook. A bowl of tobacco averages $10 and lasts about 45 minutes between two people, leaving plenty of time for conversation and dessert.

More than 13,000 customers have made their way through the doors of Cafe Hookah in Madison, Wis., since it opened six months ago, owner Vartan Seferian said. He plans to open four more Midwest locations in the next few months, all in college towns.

“Having a hookah bar is like going to a mountain with a little hammer and shovel, and finding gold and thinking, how am I going to get all this gold down?” Seferian said. “It has been crazy. Just crazy.”

Cafe owners and enthusiasts attribute the sudden surge in popularity to factors including a weak economy and greater interest in the Middle East.

Copyright 2003 Journal Sentinel Inc. Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media