Get to Know Your Retailer Series Episode 24 Cigar Life Lakeland, Florida

Episode Summary

Episode 24 of the Get to Know Your Retailer series features Mario and Patty of Cigar Life in Lakeland, Florida — a 2,400 square-foot lounge that had been open just 17 months at the time of recording. After the hosts' usual opening banter (this time a running argument about carpooling to a barn smoker), the couple walks through how a Nat Sherman townhouse visit in New York sparked the idea, and how it took four years of preparation before they signed a lease.

The heart of the conversation is genuinely useful retail strategy. Mario spent 40 years in the grocery business working with Publix, and he explains how he applied that discipline to cigars: there's no syndicated sales data (IRI, Nielsen) for premium tobacco, so he leaned on demographics, scouted every shop between Daytona and Tampa, and built opening orders around each manufacturer's top-velocity SKUs — the same logic Publix uses when it deactivates a slow item after 13 weeks. They credit reps and industry friends for the help: Mike McKinney of Diamond Crown, who spent 30 minutes trying to talk them out of opening; Manny and Z of Cordoba & Morales (who have a conference room and a custom rolling table at the shop); Alex Blizz of Cutters; and David Mealy at Nat Sherman. They also cover choosing a suburban strip-center location over downtown Lakeland for parking and permitting reasons, and why they designed the lounge around cigar selection, comfortable seating and air quality, with TVs at eye level so it feels like home rather than a sports bar.

Mario's biggest industry gripe is out-of-stocks and the lack of transparency from some manufacturers — he argues every cigar in the humidor "pays rent," and that a brand that can't forecast loses both shelf space and customer trust. The pair contrast that with companies like RoMa Craft, which communicated a San Andrés wrapper shortage that affected Neanderthal, and other manufacturers who rarely backorder more than a week.

They also talk brand mix (Ashton, Arturo Fuente, J.C. Newman, Nat Sherman, Oliva, Perdomo, plus boutiques like Esteban Carreras, La Palina and Cordoba & Morales), Patty's "Lashes and Ashes" ladies' night, poker nights, watch parties, off-site events at Lakeland Harley-Davidson, Grasslands and Publix Field with the Detroit Tigers, and the story behind Mario's embroidered "Charter Member" shirt. The episode closes with the show's standard questions: dream cigar companions (Robert De Niro and Joe Mantegna), best advice (Zig Ziglar, and "it's better to be kind than right"), favorite cigars (Cohiba Blue and Diamond Crown Black Diamond), and fictional characters J. Jonah Jameson and Wolverine.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Barn Smoker carpool banter
   The hosts open with a few minutes of back-and-forth about who was supposed to pick up whom on the way to a Barn Smoker event.
2. 02
   How Cigar Life started
   Mario traces his cigar journey from a neighbor's introduction 12–13 years ago to the moment in the Nat Sherman townhouse when he decided to open a shop, and Patty's first cigar, a Diamond Crown Connecticut.
3. 03
   Four years of prep and applying grocery-retail data
   Mario explains how 40 years in the grocery business with Publix, syndicated data like IRI and Nielsen, demographics and velocity rankings shaped their opening orders and floor plan.
4. 04
   Reps, brokers and industry mentors
   Mike McKinney of Diamond Crown, Manny and Z of Cordoba & Morales, Alex Blizz of Cutters and David Mealy of Nat Sherman are credited with honest counsel rather than hard sells.
5. 05
   Picking the location in Lakeland
   Why they passed on downtown Lakeland's permitting and parking headaches for a south-side strip center near Grasslands and Eagle Brook.
6. 06
   Aging cigars and changing palates
   Mario describes hating a Jaime Garcia at first, then loving it after 120 days of rest, and the hosts debate how long lighter versus fuller cigars should be aged.
7. 07
   The out-of-stock gripe
   Mario's central complaint about the industry: chronic backorders, allocation games and manufacturers who won't forecast or communicate, costing retailers revenue and customer trust.
8. 08
   Events, community and rapid-fire questions
   Lashes and Ashes ladies' night, poker nights, Harley-Davidson and golf-course events, the Charter Member shirt story, and favorite cigars, mentors and fictional smoking partners.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.

Transcript

Every day I'm hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling. Every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling. Welcome to a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, where we take a closer look at the people of the cigar industry, with your host, Mike and Mike. Hustlin', Hustlin', Hustlin', Hustlin', Hustlin', Hustlin'.

So, what do you want to talk about? How about? You know exactly what the fuck I want to talk about. No, I don't.

To make it a surprise. Donuts? No. No.

I want to talk about the barn smoker. Oh. The sweaty, muddy, wet barn smoker? I want to talk about the travel coordination.

Oh, you big baby. For the barn smoker. You big baby. How am I a big baby?

Guys, you've got to complain about me. So, let me... So, should I paint the picture for the listeners? Well, first, the original...

You can't defend yourself. I'm not defending myself. I'm giving the original plans for the day. " I mean, this is my story.

I'm going to preface the story with a disclaimer. You can change it around all you want later, but the fact of the matter is... This is going to be a whole show. I'll play itself.

No, I mean, but it's going to be at least a solid three minutes. Time is running. So, we're going to the barn smoker, right? You were going to give me your ticket, but I didn't need one because I already had my ticket.

I said, "Thank you very much. Don't worry. I'm going to take my buddy, Drew. " Right.

Great. Okay, cool. " And then, you know, yada yada yada. Basically three houses away from him.

Right. " You were out of the way. Okay, but I wasn't out of the way. Well, we just went a different way that made you on the way.

Not even fucking remotely out of the way. The only guy who was out of the way... Was your brother. Was my brother.

Significantly out of the way. But you didn't want to pick me up. Such a whiny girl. You didn't want to fucking pick me up.

Such a whiny girl. So that's it? You don't want to defend yourself in any way, shape, or form? Well, original, the plans were Greg and I were going in one car, and you were going in your own car.

And then Greg said, Why don't we all carpool? So you were going to pick up the guy that I was taking... Well, he's right by my house. And bring him with you, and then pick up the other guy.

Well no, you were gonna come to Greg's house and meet us there. So then I'm gonna drive 25 minutes out of the way. Oh, you're such a baby. I love it.

I love it because, you know, I told you I was gonna talk about this shit. I didn't know that's what it was. I said this is gonna happen and then you forgot about it. That's it.

I quit the show. I'm turning this off right now. That's it. You're done.

It's all right. I can't work the machinery. It's okay. You're right, I can't.

But I forgive you, Michael. It's okay. We're moving on. We're moving on.

We've got past it. Yes. Yes. All right.

Are you ready? Okay. Ready? One, two, three, go.

Hi, I'm Mike. And I'm Mike, too. And this is a Cigar Hustlers podcast. I told you this year would be like three minutes.

That wasn't even, you know? Two and a half. Yeah, because you gave me, you had no retaliation, but that's fine. I gave up.

We have Getting to Know Your Retailer series. What do you think? Something like that. Oh, that's a good name.

I like that. Getting to Know Your Retailer. We have Mario and Patty from Cigar Life of Lakeland. Right?

Say hi, guys. You guys have to say hello. Hi, guys. How you doing?

Thanks for having us. How do they sound? Good? Good.

Everybody's good. Okay. So, uh, you guys are fairly new to the industry, right? How long have you been in, uh, how long have you been a retailer?

Uh, 17 months now. 17 months. It's like, it's still a new baby date. Right.

We're still counting in months. Still counting in months. Right. It's kind of like, um, it's awesome still.

My child is 19 months old. It's like, when you hit the six or seven year mark, life just sucks. It's like, fuck it, I'm a fucking retailer. You're all disgruntled, you're disillusioned, you hate the industry.

You learn which brokers and reps are complete assholes, and which ones are good ones, and stuff like that, and you know, you're well established at that point I guess to some degree. So, what the hell made you guys get into the cigar industry? Well that's interesting, because I started smoking about 12, 13 years ago. A neighbor across the street introduced me to cigars, and cigars had always been in our culture.

Anyway, so my grandfather smoked cigars, and we were exposed to it, but not at a high level, if you will. And so he introduced me, and I said, man, once it happened, I got bit bad. So over a decade ago is when you started to become a cigar guy. Humidor, two humidors, tower humidor, you know, wow, this is awesome.

" Right. And I came back and told Patty, I said, "Listen, we've always wanted our own business. I think I want to do this. " So we started to look around, and there's a lot more to that story, but that's how it started.

That's how it all started was, you know, wanting our own business and, you know, coupling that with the passion for cigars and Patty had just begun smoking and an interesting story, at least in our shop, we normally find that, you know, people who start smoking, whether they're female or male or young or old, something familiar is always better. So coffee, latte, cappuccino, macchiato, espresso, whatever. And there's more variety there as far as sizes, so hand feel, mouth feel, to transition them into the art of smoking a cigar. - Right.

- Patty picks as her first cigar at Diamond Crown, Connecticut. - Very nice. - Go big or go home, Patty. - I was screwed after that.

- I was like, okay, great, that's it. - She just set the bar super high. - Yeah, that was it. So we started to chip away at it.

We had no idea four years ago how we would do it. Right. And, you know, when you commit yourself to something, you know, the doors start opening up, and it took four years, but, you know, here we are, and we have a 2,400-square-foot lounge in Lakeland, Florida, and it's awesome. So it took you four years to finally open the shop.

Yeah. So what did that kind of process entail, just out of curiosity? Because I think a lot of people wake up one day and say, "Hey, let's do this," right? And they realize that they're really not that prepared, they have no idea what they're doing, and then normally, they find themselves...

Yes, that's correct. Well, yeah, but at least you guys did some prep work, right? Because you find yourself, you know, in such a predicament after six months, if you don't have the prep work set up, right? And I think it's very common that a lot of retailers start off as retired guys, and they're like, "Hey, I'm just gonna have a toy," and then all of a sudden, they burn through whatever their retirement money is.

They just kind of rob from the till to pay their bills and then their belly up in less than a year's time, right? So you guys did four years worth of kind of prep work? Prep work, certainly, I'm very A-type personality, so when I commit myself to something, I don't need any motivation, I don't need anybody patting me on the back. I knew exactly what I was going to do.

I come from an industry where there's a lot of data compilations. So we had, I come from the grocery industry, I've been in the grocery industry since I was 14 years old, gonna be 54 this year, so 40 years of my life, you know, in that industry of retail. Clearly understood how that works, what impulse items are, you know, how to manage merchandising. Right.

Milk goes in the back. Right. You know, all that stuff. Yeah.

And we had access to a lot of data. So, IRI, Nielsen, these are all syndicated formats, national syndicated formats. Okay. Because I know neither one of those things.

So, for example, this type of information would be able to, I'd be, so let's say that you wanted to, and I know we're talking about cigars, but just to create an analogy. Right. Let's say that you wanted to start Mike's Mayonnaise, right, and you wanted to sell it to Publix. So how do you sell it to Publix?

Well, I could tell you who your competitors were, what price point you needed to be at. I could help you with supply chain. I could tell you how often you needed to promote. I could tell you what level you need to promote at.

I could give you a projection of how many cases you're going to sell a year. There's so much data that almost ensures that you're going to be successful if you follow the formula. So how does that kind of convey into the cigar industry? It doesn't.

Well, so here we go. I know exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to try and start gathering data. Well, there's no syndicated data for cigars.

Right. So what do you look at next? Well, what's the next common denominator? Demographics.

Well, I could chip away at that because I knew what my demographics were. We have three significant high-income residential areas around where we wanted to be. Gotcha. And so that was a plus.

Who are our competitors? We hit every cigar shop between Daytona and Tampa, right? And more so, not as a study, but because we had friends we were developing in the business, and we were starting to go and being passionate about cigars, we're going to all these events with Joaquin and, you know, ME&Z and from Cordoba & Morales. And so, you know, through them, we began to gather, well, what's the tempo?

What does it look like? What are the margins? What do we need to start? You know, well, let's do a floor plan.

So based on this floor plan, this would be the size of our humidor. How much money do we need for inventory? How much money do we, what kind of furniture do we want? And then we start chipping away at putting it all together, right?

And the competitive aspect was really the biggest part for me because at the time there was a Tinderbox franchise about six miles. from where we ultimately opened it took four years because we weren't ready right right we just weren't ready um i i thought if you do a and b you're going to get c right and had a and b happened and c had come we'd have been in the situation you described earlier right we would have we there were things we needed to learn during that time which was extremely frustrating for me right because i come from an industry that i dominated right so here i'm in a in a in a whole new industry that doesn't So everything from real estate, to loans, to credit lines, to business plans, permitting, licensing, all these things, we had to learn ourselves really, really fast. And it's fortunate that things happened the way they did because we've been successful to this point because of those learnings that we had along the way. So who's the rep for Diamond Crown in your area?

Right now it's Mike McKinney. Oh, it still is, Mike McKinney? Yeah. All right, so are you like besties with him then, or no?

Yeah. We were good friends. Yeah. Yeah, he's a great guy.

He really is. He's a great guy, he's buttoned up, he's Johnny on the spot. Yeah. And he's helped us a lot.

Yeah. Actually, it's funny you should mention, Mike, because once we had the location established and we knew where we were going to open, we had to build up, we had a contractor to do the build up and everything. We had the floor plans ready. We sat down with each rep to kind of start putting our initial orders together.

We sat down with Mike McKinney, and Mike spent the first 30 minutes of our conversation trying to talk us out of doing a cigar meeting. He's like, "You sure you want to do this? Why do you want to do this? " You guys are nuts.

Don't get into the cigar industry. Listen, it's too late, man. Things dry on the contract, on the lease, everything. We're here.

It's done. But he's been a tremendous asset, as well as ME&Z, who helped us a lot. Right. Another asset, Alex Blizz from Cutters.

Okay. When we were, you know, polishing up our floor plan and our finances and stuff, I sat with Alex a couple of times. He was very, very instrumental in helping us. He'd already been in business for a couple of years.

So, we got a lot of support from the industry to get going. Right. " Because a lot of salesmen would walk into the place and be like, all right, here we go, this is going to be my section of the humidor, we're going to get to 10 of these, 10 of these, 10 of these, 10 of these, you know, all right, we're going to back them all up, and you know, that'll be $8,000, and then all of a sudden you're sitting on, you know, a shit ton of cigars that nobody really cares about, right? But instead, you had the opposite of that.

You had a guy that went out of his way and said, you really need to think this through. And he's been like that all the way through, all the time. He's never pushed us into a situation where we're not comfortable, or we're, you know, we've even talked about, oh, you know, we'd like to make the humidor bigger, or should we, and he's like, no, no, no, no, no, just leave it alone, leave it alone, you're good. Yeah, it's difficult to expand it.

So here's where some of that, you know, grocery knowledge comes in. There's velocity standards in the grocery store, so I always worked with Publix, which is my primary account. And at Publix, if you put a new item on the shelf and in 13 weeks it's not moving, it automatically becomes deactivated. So in other words, it doesn't come off the shelf, but the system will no longer reorder that case.

13 weeks? 13 weeks. Wow. So we knew, I knew from my experience at Publix, that I had to have the highest ranking items in each of the manufacturers that we wanted to start with.

Right. So that's how we selected our opening orders for everyone. That's a great approach. So we knew that at the very least we were starting with the best of the best velocity movers in each of the brands we were going to represent.

Right. And that was huge. Super smart. That isn't something that a lot of people do.

" Yeah, no, and listen, even today we have people coming to our door every day, every mom and pop. Of course. Listen, can you carry our stuff? And, you know, the story of "I don't have space" is, everyone knows, That's just a cop-out.

Right. I'm going to bring in what my customers want. Right. So an example of that would be we had our one-year anniversary in January.

We had a big party, and it was fantastic. And one of the cigars, we had a Taranio cigar that was given as a giveaway. We had eight manufacturers there, and everyone gave sticks included in the ticket price. It was like a mini-bash where you walked around and they talked about the cigar.

A little passport. It's like a little multi-vendor event. Correct. And it was fantastic.

And one of the cigars that was given out was the green Taranio vault. Right. And we didn't carry that cigar at the time. It was Jack?

Yeah. No, Jack wasn't there. It was Zach. It was Zach Moore.

Zach Moore. And so, as a byproduct of having that cigar out and people tasting it, they went nuts. Created a demand for it. Yeah.

Now we have it. We carry five of those Taranio vaults. Because that sounds like a Jack Taranio move, just for the record. You know, sneaky bastard.

Sneak something in. Yeah, no, I mean, I love Jack to Death. He's like a father slash brother to me, you know, in many aspects, and he's very involved in the industry, but I still have Neyes, you know, and he did a good job of promoting them, the fucking guy. So, but now that he's officially Taranio, you know, it's much easier, but I do want to send him his Neyes back.

You mentioned before that you, you know, you had a pretty big collection before you got into the cigar industry, so did you collect specific things and kind of let them age, did you look for stuff in particular that was hard to find that you kept or anything like that? No, not necessarily. Not really. Okay.

I think we... We just bought stuff we liked. Right, this is good, let's get this. Right.

And it just kind of built up to three humidors. Right. " it's way too peppery it's right on your face it's a very bold cigar spice and i just it just turned me off and i went you know what the heck i'll just throw it in the humidor in the tower right and i'll give it to people when they come over because we always have hands over so um wait is that why i always get a high me garcia yeah nothing like burying somebody i'm not a cigar guy here you go As they turn green. Why do you turn green?

Never smoke again. Three or four months later, Patty, we're out by the pool, Patty says, "Why don't you have one of those hymi's? " Man, wow. Totally different.

120 days. Yeah. Just changed that cigar completely, like somebody re-rolled it. Right.

And I love them now, so I, you know, when I have them, I make sure that I age them a little bit, and they're right to where I wanted to be. Right. You know the thing with aging, my experience, I'm not speaking, there's no technical data to back this up, I think that on the lighter side of cigars, if you age them too long, they become one dimensional, they're flat, they're almost monotone, I think the ones with a little more character when you age them, yeah, that makes a difference, right, I've heard different things that you can age cigars for as many as, you know, seven, eight years, eight years, but I don't know what the rule of thumb is there, all I can speak to is, you know, You know, what our experience was, which was the lighter ones a little bit, you can age them and they get really good, and you know, the more powerful ones, you can age them a little longer and they get really good. Right, yeah, it's all going to depend.

I mean, the strength is going to weaken as it progresses, but the flavor will pop out, and then it'll cap out if you hold it for 12 or 13 years, that's kind of where everything starts to decline after that point moving forward, which is kind of funny to me when, you know, you see these pre-embargo Cubans, 20, 30 years old, yeah. Circa 1960, that got to taste like absolute dog shit, but people will pay a super premium for them because, you know, that's the ego of this industry. So how far is Lakeland from here? About an hour and a half.

So you guys drove an hour and a half today just to come and hang out and go on the podcast. That is fucking awesome. Just to see him? And you.

Oh, thank you very much. Well, you're the legendary Mike Palmer. Well, you know, it's a small legend. I mean, after I beat you up prior to as we were opening up, well, I'll have to build you back up.

That's why I'm not talking. Oh, you're shutting down? I'm shutting down. Let's just turn off your mic now.

You're inconveniencing me. And quite honestly, we've heard so many great things about your shop, and so we've never been here. Wanted to come and see, you know, what it was like and pick your brain. Yeah, for sure.

I've always thought we should do that as an industry. You know, brick and mortar guys get together and, you know, not share sensitive information, but certainly, And certainly, you know, there was a takeaway earlier when we were in the humidor, so just little things like that that can help each other. Yeah, I mean, you know, you guys are obviously intelligent retailers, right, and that does make sense to kind of hook up and like a mastermind, if you will, is where everybody kind of gets together, this is what's working for us, this is what isn't, and you kind of build all businesses as a whole. Instead of kind of isolating yourself, having your own ideas, that doesn't work long term.

We actually had a conversation in Nicaragua with another couple of guys that work at a retail shop in, where are they, Pensacola? Bush? Bush? No, not, not...

Cordova? Cordova. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Spencer and James. And we actually had a conversation that we, maybe, there's no, there's no retailer kind of group. Right. But to bounce ideas off each other and stuff like that, and we talked about maybe we should put something together, even if it's informally, yeah, and then see where it goes from there, and we need to maybe revisit that.

Oh, that's a great idea, for sure. I mean, to some degree they have some of that with like the TAA, all the big dogs will at least get together and then they'll dictate as far as, you know, purchasing stuff in bulk and hitting discount points and stuff like that. But yeah, for middle range, for the rest of the retailers, you know, um, yeah, I think that that's a fantastic idea, you know. Um, so, how long did it take you to determine where you wanted to open your shop as far as the exact location?

You wanna talk about that? Come on, Patty! Um, we, we probably drove around Lakeland and researched online for, what, a couple years? At one time, we were looking at downtown Lakeland, because downtown Lakeland is really cool, a lot of old historic buildings, small businesses, little shops, antique stores, all kinds, you know, now there's a lot more restaurants down there.

Probably great on the weekends and stuff. Yeah, it's really cool, there's, they always have a First Friday event down there, and there's a park called Munn Park, and it's all around that park, so we looked at downtown Lakeland, but we also started, as we researched, we found out the city of Lakeland, Dealing with the city was a little more difficult than dealing with the county. The historic issues. Were they anti-smoking as well?

Not necessarily because there's a few bars down there and people smoke outside and all of that. But just getting permits and getting the business going was going to be a little tougher in the city of Lakeland and in downtown. Parking was also an issue. Right.

Everything down there is parking garage or parallel parking on the street. And we wanted, from our experience going to one of the other local shops that we used to go to, the parking was an issue. You had to walk like half a block because it was kind of in a mall. So we looked at some of the strip centers and outside of the city limits and found one that basically the price was good and had great parking and the guy was willing to work with us on the build out and everything.

- That's cool. - That's kind of how it came to be. Plus, we wanted to be on the south side. Right.

There's, like Mario mentioned, a couple of golf communities and other, you know, kind of good zip codes to be in or to be around. You pull out the demographics of the area. Correct, yeah. Right.

So, that's kind of where we ended up. So, how long did it take you to find that location? Because it was like a four-year process all the way through, about how much of that was determined in the location. A couple years.

Easily a couple years. It's easy, you know, I mean, even if you see some vacant buildings, sometimes you don't know if they're available or if you don't have a good commercial realtor to open up the doors for you, you know, you can get stuck just trying to find a spot, you know? And sometimes you get to a point where you're so desperate that you just open up a spot that may be a complete mistake, you know? But it seems like you guys did everything right.

So far. So far, we hope so. I hope so. All right.

The proof will be in the pudding, right? We'll see as time goes on. Yeah, but you're still here. Yeah.

You don't look like you're super stressed out about the shop, you know, which is obviously there's going to be some stress levels there regardless because, you know, now you're a business owner, which sounded probably a lot more fun at the beginning until you kind of got into it, right? But it is, I mean, you know, I wouldn't have it any other way. I would never work for anybody else ever in my life moving forward. I feel the same way.

You know, it's just impossible. I've been full-time now at the shop since February. Right. So you guys are there pretty much seven days a week.

Yeah. We are there seven days a week. Which is pretty much what it takes in order to get a retail shop going. Yep.

And there's somebody watching the shop right now, right? Yes. We've developed great friendships that we had from when we used to go to the tinderbox. Right.

And we met people there and friends that we had through, we used to belong to the Lakeland Corvette Club. I don't have any more Corvettes because I'm now a business owner. And so, through those relationships, we do have a couple of guys that can help us out on Mondays and Fridays, and whenever we have something like this where we've got to be away from the shop, they're always ready and willing to take cover for us, so that's great. That's awesome.

That's what we kind of did with Mike. We just, you know, we guilted him into it. Now he's got a key and alarm code and shit. And you bring it up all the time.

I do. Well, I'm proud of you. I mean, you know, it's nice. It's nice to have a good friend that's got your back, except when you need to go to Claremont.

So, you were telling me before that you did kind of like an aggressive crash course on the podcast, right? That you've listened to a few episodes so far. I'm kind of curious as to what was your favorite one? I liked Jax.

Yeah. I thought Jack Taranio's interview was was really cool. I think that's been my favorite so far. Yeah.

I didn't hear Jax. Of the ones I've heard, Jeff Groover's a trip. He's such a nice guy, he's funny, I enjoyed his. So what's really cool about that interview was that we didn't really get him to open up, but in one of the upcoming ones, it'll actually be before this one airs, we sat in for Jared Trudeau's from Kristoff's, and we got him to finally talk a little bit more, because he's done some crazy stuff too, which you didn't want to come out on the podcast.

It would have met her off before when we were less popular. Yeah. But now he's fun. Now he's… Okay, so what is your, what cigar do you think does really well as far as like a mainstream, core line cigar that you think that you move the best in this shop?

Because every shop is different, right? You know, here, I would say that as far as core line, like mainstream, and like the Fuente Grand Reserva is an easy move, right? The Monte Cristo White Label, Toro, you have your guys that are going to come in, they're always going to buy those, they never want anything else, I mean, we're a little bit different because we're more boutique aimed at, and obviously we do really well with our own stuff, as well as the Roma Craft stuff, but what is it for you guys that's mainstream that you'd say kind of is head and shoulders above the rest? It kind of fluctuates sometimes through the humidor.

Yeah, of course. It's, you know, one month we could be blowing through Olivas, or another month we'll be going through Perdomo's, but I think, I don't know, what would you say, Ashton, Perdomo? Yeah, I mean, you're right, it obviously changes, but you know, currently... Ashton, Fuente, and Newman are strong brands.

Right, well, it's the Newman's because Patty's smoking them all. Yeah. And the fact of the matter is that when a consumer comes in it, they see what you're smoking, they're going to smoke it too, you know? The Nat Shermans are doing very well.

Yeah. Well, that's kind of where you decided to become a cigar store owner was at the Nat Sherman store. So I'm sure that that has some of that back play as well, you know? Oh, absolutely.

And I think simultaneously, you know, Nat Sherman as an organization has done a lot of things to reestablish the brand. Not that they were ever not a player, but that they're really trying to make an effort of becoming more visible than they've been in the past. And we've had a couple of events with Sherman that have gone over. Phenomenal.

We have an upcoming poker run that's going to be done, and they're the host brand, so doing those types of things really help the brand get traction. Of course, and that's why we're including them. That's David Mealy? David Mealy.

He's a phenomenal guy. You know, you have, we were talking about this earlier, you develop partners in the business, right? And in the manufacturing side. And we've had some guys that have given us tremendous consult that have helped us be successful.

Right. You know, a lot of it has to do with, you know, we also have a personal relationship with them. So we'll go to dinner with them or we'll spend some social time as well. Right.

And I think that's really important, too, if you have the ability to do that and develop those relationships So if you have partnerships where they get to know you and you guys are comfortable, you know, it helps the success of the job. Of course. Yeah, especially if they're honest. And yeah, you're absolutely right.

As far as cultivating that interdependency makes a big difference. Yeah, it's a partnership, definitely. And I really appreciate their candor because, like Patty was saying with Mike McGinney, they might listen, you know, what do you think we should do here? I like to get everybody's opinion, right?

And then formulate our own, balancing all the facts that we have based on the information that we receive. Mike's always a very straight-up, candid, level, fact-based kind of guy, and a lot of what he's recommended has been successful for us. Yeah, I mean, he's been in the industry a long time, on the retail side and wholesale. I think it's 15 to 18 years he's been in the business, so that was a great interview as well with anyone.

He was really excited to do it, too. He was. And now he listens to it all the time, and he makes other people listen to it. Right.

So, I really like Mike. Yeah. And he gives me feedback too, which is nice. Oh, very nice.

Yeah. All right. So, um, what do you want to go from here? What about boutiques?

You don't carry a lot of boutiques, right? Not a lot. Not a lot. We have a few.

We have Esteban Carreras. Right. We have La Palina. We have...

Cordova Morales. Cordova Morales. Cordova Morales has a tremendous following. Yeah.

They do, we do really well with them. I mean, we're, we're doing weekly orders with them. Right. They do really well.

Also very, very instrumental. E. & Z both were while we polished this idea and it came to fruition, they were very much a part of our success. Right.

Just in the counsel and the guidance and what to do, what you can't do. Introducing us to people. Introducing us to Joaquin. Giving us contacts.

Some of the other folks that have helped us, that's been tremendous. Joaquin has as many accessories on him as much as any person can possibly have. You know, I call him multiple accessory man. Yes.

Absolutely. I haven't seen him in a little bit, but I'm sure that he hasn't changed whatsoever. And he's always got different boots, too. He has quite the boot collection.

He has quite the boot collection. He has quite the boot collection. So, you know, something else that's, I think, helping us succeed is we didn't want to just be another cigar retailer. Right.

We're in this for the long haul. And having been in the grocery industry, when I worked in stores, we had this idea that we always wanted to have something. We've always wanted to have some sort of something new for the customer to see every time they came in, so we've been working on several fronts to do that, both from warming the store up from an accessory standpoint, as far as decorations, you know, frames and pallet wood walls, and just making it a little cozier, as well as event-wise, so, you know, doing smokers, doing, you know, the brick house chair event, And doing things like this. Our store does really well with that type of activity.

How often do you do events? Every four to six weeks, we have something. How often do you guys do a ladies-only event? Yes, we do.

That's cool. Once a month. Once a month. We'd have like two women in this shop.

Right. Well, they're a little more woman-friendly in that shop. This is a very male-looking shop when you come in. Right.

We have your old 60-year-old grumpy bastards. We have some of those, too. Mike walked in yesterday and all the old men at the table turned around and gave her a look, so she hurried right back. To build upon what Mike was saying, Patty developed a group called Lashes and Ashes.

And they meet the third Thursday of every month in our shop in the conference room behind closed doors. The Cordoba Morales conference room. It is a Cordoba Morales conference room. We dedicated the conference room to them for all the help they gave us during that.

That's awesome. Z also has a rolling desk, a rolling table, at our shop that he uses for events, and it's at our shop all the time. He had it custom made for our shop. That's awesome.

Yeah, it's really cool, really cool that he would do that. So, we do that. We have poker the first Thursday of every month. So, in between events, we have other things going on.

Tonight, we have a watch party for the hockey game. So we're always trying to create some excitement around the shop: what's next, what's hot, what can we do to continue to engage our customers. We used, we were advertising with N2 Publishing for a while, and they published a magazine at each of these golf courses that we were talking about, Grasslands and Eagle Brook. And we just switched over to a format called SendText.

It's a text messaging service. Yes, we can run different promos there, so now you have Facebook, Instagram, you have send text, you have email, you have as many ways as you can try to reach the customer. Right. Our facility is 2,400 square feet, so we can sit comfortably 50 people, and we have a 20 by 25 foot conference room that we have businessmen that come in during the day and they sit in the conference room, it's a conference room table with eight office chairs, and they sit and work there.

There's also a couple of club chairs in three corners, and so they can, you know, dim the lights and read or do whatever they need to do. So try to, you know, make it as comfortable as possible, the layout. As we were building it, the biggest three things for me were cigar selection, comfortable seating. So, you know, you could have sometimes chairs where your arms are rolling off the armrest, right, because they're rounded, so we went with wider armrests so it's comfortable, you can set your arms down.

And then smoke, air quality. Of course. Those three things is what we build the concept around. And so we use coffee tables and end tables to make it feel like your home.

We have TVs down on media centers instead of up on the walls so it doesn't feel like a sports bar. And just... Oh, that is a nice touch. I've never noticed for that reason, but you're right, they're at eye level.

You're not sitting with your... I just showed everybody with my head. There's many things... No, like that.

Yeah, like this. Yeah, you're not looking up at the ceiling. You make it feel like you're home. Right.

And that concept has worked really well for us. It may not work everywhere, but it's been very, very successful. And I think that's part of what's helping us succeed is that people really feel comfortable there. Awesome.

It feels like home. Do you have, like, a website online, too, or no? We do. Okay, and you sell, obviously, the products online?

No, we don't. We don't do any online sales. Okay. Not yet.

Not yet. It's something we've talked about for the future. I don't think we know enough yet to do it. Yeah.

To do it. Okay. Well, I mean, you know, the hard part of that is that you have to not solely focus on mainstream products because a lot of those things are online already and some of them are deep discounted to a point where it doesn't even make sense to compete, right? That was one thing that one of our growing pains that we did when we built our website was like, "Why are we even bothering with this?

" Get it somewhere else. Yeah. With somebody who's more established. So when you do come across that point, that may be where you start to kind of transition a little bit more into some boutique brands, stuffer, stuffer, stuff that's hard to get, you know, to come across that, you know, you might have more access to.

Or if you have, like, consumers that come in, because obviously we're in Florida, right, like, snowbirds come down and then they fly back, the off-season you can ship to them direct and stuff like that. Those things will make a big difference, you know. So, they know the questions, Mike. I know, you know.

We should have another set. We're gonna have to rotate a set because it doesn't matter. If we did a whole new set, they would have heard it a lot of ways. If we had two sets of questions, they would have eventually heard that.

Yeah, they'll eventually get to us. But do you, wait, now, before we were talking about that you do have a gripe in the industry, do you want to talk about it? Yeah, I can, I've been more than happy. I'm very vocal, so I don't, everybody that I associate with in the industry knows my gripes.

Right. Again, having come from the grocery business, you know. Right. And this is definitely like a slapdick industry where, you know, nobody has their shit together.

So, you know, when you work for Publix, or you work with Publix, there's no such thing as out-of-stop. Right. You want to chop my ass? Tell me you're not going to have product for a while.

Right. Because if that's the case, you don't find out, in my opinion, okay, if you're engaged in your business, you don't find out all of a sudden that you're going to be out of product. Right. I mean, there's operational meetings, there's raw material meetings, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff going on.

You know, there's an issue coming up, I want to know about it ahead of time, and I want to be able to get product ahead of time. That's a fair statement. " These things tend to run a little tight, we close on such a date, and we're probably going to be out until February. So, if you think you're going to do well with it, you probably want to get it.

That sounds exactly like Mike McKinney, just for the record. So, that's where I think the partnerships are building. Oh, for sure. " Yeah, I'm out of macaroni and cheese this week.

That only flies one time, because the second time, there's 15 companies selling mac and cheese that are ready to eat your lunch. Right. So, this concept of out-of-stocks, and I'm not talking about out-of-stocks for a week, I'm talking about out-of-stocks on a continual basis. There's a couple of cigars that we do very, very well with that now the manufacturer is costing me revenue because that product is not available.

And in some cases, you have product on allocation that you can't get until you get your next order, but you can't get your next order because they're out-of-stock. So, you know, that's, and I'm a little drastic when it comes to things. Paddy's always tries to talk me off the ledge. I'm like, yank it.

Pull the whole line off the shelf. I don't give a shit. Right? That's, every cigar in my shop, every cigar in my shop pays rent.

Right. If you don't pay your rent, you get evicted. Right. And if you don't show up, you're gone.

No, for sure. So, that's my rub. Yeah, big time. Big time.

Big time. So like, you know, one of the companies that we do really well with, obviously, and that we're closely affiliated with is Roma, Roma Craft. And they do an excellent job of letting you know that, hey, the product is, we have a smaller quantity, or if there's going to be a raw material issue, like there was a lull in San Andreas, so the Neanderthal was down for a few months, but they let you know, right? And you're absolutely right, it is possible to convey that information to the retailer.

Look, we got this coming in, you might want to stock up on it, because we're going to hit a dry spell here in the upcoming months, whether it be for raw material, or whatever the case may be, you know, so yeah, you're totally 100% correct. And if it's one blend, or if it's like you said, the San Andreas wrapper, that affects one of their, I get it, but when it's across the board, that's a problem. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Yeah.

I just have zero tolerance for that. Right. And then what happens is at the end of the day they lose shell space, and then eventually they try and gain your trust back, but it's already done, the ship has already sailed. Well, not only my trust, the customer's trust.

Right. Because now I've taken that customer and turned it into another ship. They've switched to something else. Right?

Right. So, now they're buying that. Right. That's true.

That's a great way to lose momentum in any brand. Right. And that happens a lot in this industry. Yeah.

I don't know how that's, I mean, maybe because, maybe we're naive, maybe, you know, as new retailers, The supply chain works a little differently than I'm used to in the grocery business. Raw materials, raw material, and I get it, but there has to be some checks and balances, there has to be some forecasting, there has to be, where I come from, it's a very monitored process. Yeah, should we plant these this year? That's not how that works.

Well, there are some manufacturers that never or rarely have any back orders, and if it's back ordered, it's back ordered for maybe a week, Right. And that's it. They forecast, they know what, you know, what they need, you know, and I can think of a handful right now that we've, you know, yeah, okay, I've had one particular blend back ordered for a week. Right.

But that's it. Yeah, exactly. So, obviously, some manufacturers are pretty good at forecasting and predicting what they're going to need and harvest, whatever, whatever their process is. Right.

It's obviously not the same as pasta, right? You know, I mean, it just runs through a machine, whatever. I mean, whatever. Is it more of a size issue with the company?

Do you have smaller companies out of stuff more often than bigger companies? I think that that depends upon if you own your own farms and stuff like that. Right, yeah, cash flow and somebody else buying the tobacco before you get to it. Right, cash flow could be a problem, too, yeah.

But like Mario said, though, they should know in advance. " But the Roma guys aren't a huge company, right? No, no, but there are smaller ones, though. Right, but there are companies that are smaller than them, but they still know, I mean, if you can get a pilon or not.

Well, inventory levels are inventory levels, no matter what. So, I mean. So, to some degree, you know. Yeah, they're going to know what they have on hand, plus what's coming down the pipeline.

Right. They know what's being manufactured, what's being getting, what's ready to ship over. Yeah, absolutely. Or they could at least tell you, hey, you know, this product is out, and even if it isn't an agricultural reason, whatever the case may be, they'll say, hey, it's slated to be produced in six weeks.

It'll be ready 12 weeks after that. So you're looking at that product in five or six months instead of kind of giving you an answer like, well, I don't know. You know? Right.

We've had issues where we've ordered products and if a rep or a broker is like, yeah, no problem. We got you covered. And then, you know, you follow back and you say, hey, what's going on with this? And they go, oh, it's coming.

It's coming. And then you follow back again and they say, oh, well, you're not entitled to that. Right. What the fuck just happened?

I've been telling my customers for the past three months that it's coming. And now I gotta go back and explain to them that, oh, well, I guess I'm no longer allowed to get that, which is total bullshit, you know? I agree. And where it goes into feeding the bigger retailers or anything like that or something of that sort, it's like, okay, well, if that's how you're gonna treat me, then you're absolutely right, guess what, buy one, get one, all your products, and have a nice fucking day, you're out of here.

And that's where we're at with one, you know, we're about ready to just, that's it. Yeah, you know. It's coming next week. It's coming next week.

Right. Just don't bullshit me anymore. Right. You know?

That doesn't work. That's not how I pay the rent. Right, right. Be honest with me so I can act accordingly.

And that'll protect their shelf space long term. Not only that, I mean, you're able to communicate to the, let me tell you, the customer is very forgiving. Right. If you're able to tell a customer, "Hey, I'm gonna be out of this brand for XYZ reasons for the next six weeks, eight weeks.

So we're gonna reallocate the shelf space, but, you know, as soon as it's ready, we are gonna bring it back. The customer, they'll understand that, you know? Right. But otherwise, we look like idiots.

Yeah, yeah, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. Well, that's what you told us three months ago. Right, that's what you said. Well, that's what I was told.

That's what I was told, yeah. We got in the conversation the other night at the shop, and the guy was talking to me about this particular brand. I said, "Go to Famous, online, out of stock. Go to Thomson, out of stock.

Go to JR, out of stock. Go to CI, out of stock. It's not me, brother. " Right.

You can't do it like that. Yeah, no, absolutely. With some of these manufacturers and brand owners, there should definitely be a little more transparency. Yeah, and collaboration so that we can manage the customer's expectations of the brand as well as manage our customers.

It's not the customer's expectations while at the shop. Right. But we can all help each other. Yeah.

But you gotta be transparent. Yep. That makes a huge difference. That's absolutely 100% accurate, man.

" I mean, you got your shit together, which is awesome. Thanks. Thanks. I know that may not sound like a big deal, but I would say 80% of the retailers that are probably our size, I really don't give a shit.

They're, you know, retired, like I was saying before, and they just wanted kind of a place to hang out. It's a hobby. It's a hobby. Yeah, this isn't a hobby for us.

Right, living off their pension or their retirement, and they want a place to hang out. This is our retirement. Right, exactly. You've already spent that.

Literally, this is our retirement. This is our retirement. And Patty knows how passionate I am about it, and she's passionate as well. But, you know, I'm over the top with, you know, this is going to work.

This is going to, we're going to succeed. I want to be the Amazon of cigars in Lakeland, Florida. Right. When people think about, you know, hey, I want to do this, or I want to do that, and it's cigar-related, hey, you've got to go see Mario & Paddy, you've got to go to Cigar Life, at least go by and talk to them.

We have great reviews, you know, we treat everybody like family. Right. Like family. The minute you come in, we greet everybody, we want to make sure that we give them time in the humidor on their own.

Some people just like to hunt, that's the nature of our business. Right. But then also make sure that we're available. Right.

A lot of kids, I'm getting a lot of college kids coming in. For sure. That have never smoked a cigar and they want to learn the art of smoking a cigar. So I've got, Patty will tell you, I've got, I don't know, 10 or 15 guys that come in and take pictures of what I'd recommended last time.

Right. And they tell me what they like, they show me the band, and this is what I like, this is what I didn't like, can you take me to the next cigar? And I'm teaching them the art of smoking and helping them develop their palates. Right.

Right. Not with any technical information on leaf or anything. It's just all about flavor. Right.

And, you know, they'll learn all the technical stuff once they mature into the art. This is good, this is bad. Yeah. This fits your palate, this doesn't.

Exactly, exactly. Because for them, you know, we do have some guys that come in and they'll drop 60 bucks on four sticks with no problem. Right. But then you have the other guys that are really trying to learn and, you know, they want to buy an $8 stick or a $10 stick might be a stretch.

And why should I buy that stick? So it's pretty cool. We're doing a lot of stuff externally as well. We hooked up with Ron Myers, who is the director of operations for the Detroit Tigers.

That's cool. And so we're doing a couple of events out at Publix Field remotely. That's that old connect that you tapped. Very nice.

We've got a deal signed with Lakeland Harley-Davidson where we're there the first Saturday of every month from noon to 3 on site. That's cool. Yeah, that's very cool, because cigars and bikes, I mean, that goes together. We've done four events at Grasslands.

We've already discussed with Lone Palm and Eagle Brook events starting in the fall. Those have been very successful. They do them in the format of a dinner, cigar before, cigar after, and rotated three manufacturers out at Grasslands with a lot of success. So, you know, generating other streams of revenue outside of just a shop, so I want to be in the community.

I shared with you earlier that I'm a Kiwanian, so one of the Kiwanis of Lakeland will be doing their rum fest in November. We've got a lot of things going on, a lot of momentum, trying to really establish our brand, the Cigar Life brand, in Lakeland. That's awesome. I think that's important, too.

Yeah, absolutely. Being part of the community is a big deal. And Lakeland is a small, it's a little big town, I guess. Right.

So, what's that small town feel? It has that small town feel, and small businesses stick together, and everybody kind of knows each other, and we belong to a couple organizations. Right. Where we network, and… That's awesome.

So, being involved in the community, I think, for a place like Lakeland, it's really important. And it's got to make you feel good, right? Absolutely. You know, to kind of give back, and, you know, look, on a Saturday, you could just open up your shop, And check out, right?

Hey, here's a product, whatever. But you guys are actually doing stuff where you're outside of your own establishment and kind of promoting your business and also giving people opportunities and educating them on cigars, which is awesome, for sure. Yeah, it's a lot of fun to be involved in the community because we're starting to see some of that come back to the shop, right? The whole idea is you do that to get involved and build your brand and then hopefully some of that residual comes back and they become customers and they're picking up, you know, cigars at your shop.

And that's what's happening. So it's, it's very exciting. I can't even, I can't even describe, you know, how much fun it is right now. Right.

Hopefully I won't feel like you're feeling that. I love this industry, you know, without question. And I couldn't see myself in any other industry. No, but it's still work.

Yeah, there are times where it's like, you know, people call out or something's going on and, you know, you got to be in three places at the same time. time it's like jesus what am i what am i doing but no you're absolutely right i mean this industry is awesome and as long as you get to continue to meet good people and and you know have that interdependency and kind of give it there isn't anything like it bar none as long as the fda doesn't destroy it so yeah that's a whole nother story right so now mike was telling me that there's kind of a sensitive subject regarding your shirts so you have a you have a charter member slogan on I mean, your shirts are awesome. It says Cigar Life on your left chest, and then it says your name on your right. Now yours says Charter Member.

Mario's a charter member of Cigar Life. But neither one of you have owner or anything like that. So what's up with that? So I'm just gonna tell the first part of the story, and I'm gonna let her take it from there.

All right. So we, like every good shop, we wanted to have lockers. So the lockers, we bought a 30-locker cabinet, and it's a self-humidification. It's called the Self-Communification System, so there's 29 lockers available, and we wanted to do something really special, it wasn't a money-making, it was about trying to build a brand, right, so we had these really nice Tommy Bahama shirts made with our stitching, and we gave them to the first 29 members, so if they bought a locker agreement for a year, they got this, after the first 29, that's it, there are no more shirts, if it's the first 29 and that's it, they're done.

Right, one and done type of a deal. It's a one-and-done type of deal, and that's where I'm going to leave it. I'll let Patty take it from there. " Right.

Well, I forgot to tell the guy that Mario does not have the charter member under it. His just had to have his name. Right. " But at that point, it was too late, they were embroidered.

Yeah, they ship a sale. The charter member. The charter member. I thought about taking a Sharpie and just, you know, blocking it out.

Just blacking it out. Yeah, black it out and put a piece of tape over it or something. But anyway, that was my mistake. " Yeah, that's all I am.

Did you pay full price for your life? You're not just a charter member. Well, hey, at the end of the day, you paid for all of it first and foremost, right? True.

So I am, The charter member, exactly. The charter member. The charter member. That's what we should do, having to stitch the charter member right on top.

There you go. There you go. That'll be the Mario charter member. So yeah, you gotta get like owner ones or whatever.

What's cool for me is like at this shop, some people don't even know that my brother and I own the shop. I mean, Greg usually dresses a little more bougie than me, so he kind of stands out, but I'll usually wear like a regular t-shirt or whatever. Well, Greg wears all the child-sized t-shirts. Yeah, yeah.

He likes shmediums. The shmediums. Yeah, the shmediums. Yeah, so, I mean, I really like it when, you know, unless you know me, you just totally walk right past me, which is fantastic.

Well, at the show a couple years ago, people were walking up to me, because I was the older of the three guys, and they thought I was the owner of the company. " That's okay. I'm alright with that. So, you ready for the questions?

Uh, yeah, yeah, we'll do the questions. How do you want to do the twofer again? Just one back and forth, or one for each? I think you can just go, you know, you can ask Mario and then Patty.

Alright, same question though. Yeah. Like we did before. Yeah.

Okay. Alright. First question, Mario. What one person, living or dead, do you want to share a cigar with?

So I actually had to think about this, because there's a lot of people I would love to sit down and have a cigar with. I think it would be really cool to sit down with Robert De Niro. Excellent choice. I think he would just spend a couple hours with him, you know, no cameras, no script, no lights, no nothing, just a candid conversation about him and his life.

So, what made you really kind of pick him above the rest? I love his character. I love what he does in film, and I just think that he would be somebody really cool to speak to. He's surprisingly quiet and soft-spoken in real life.

I've seen a lot of interviews with him, and he doesn't come off as loud as he does in the movies, I think. Agreed, agreed. And I think I kind of like that. I'm attracted to that.

Because there's always somebody wiser than you in the room, for sure. We have that in the shop. We have a couple of older guys, and they come in and they start talking, and I just want to sit and listen, because some of these guys are old Florida crackers that have been, and I mean that with love, I don't mean that in disrespect, but they've been in the cattle business, they've been They've been in Lakeland for over 50 years, and they've seen the evolution of the town, and man, some of the stuff they talk about, you're going, you're kidding, man, that used to be like that. That was a dirt road.

Well, and even just politically, economically, where the money came from, who's tied to who, who supports who, I mean, there's a lot of neat stuff about our little, I call it our little podunk town. Right, podunk town in Lakeland. Robert De Niro would be it for me. Awesome.

Patty? I think, again, I've given it some thought, and I keep coming back to the same person, Joe Mantegna. Okay. David Rossi from Criminal Minds, I think he's just like such a cool, classy dude.

Yeah. Very nice. So, same scenario, what made you pick him above everybody else? I'm a huge fan of Criminal Minds, as disturbing as that show can be.

Yeah. Careful, Mario. Careful. She's learning how to kill people.

I know, right? I watch a lot of those shows. Do you see the scar on my neck? Oh, stop.

He keeps telling people, like... I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning and there was a blade to it. That's a whole 'nother story. Till death do you part.

I've seen interviews with him and read interviews with him. He was in Cigar Aficionado. I think his, his real life personality is similar to his character on, and he, on the show, he refers to a good cigar and a good glass of wine and he's, he's a foodie and he likes to cook for people and, and I think he's kind of like that in real life. Right, so.

So it'd be good all the way around as far as booze, food, cigars. A complete evening. A complete evening. A great date.

Yeah, yeah. And then you'd leave Mario. He'd be killed and then it'd be done. He likes Fuente cigars.

As long as she leaves me the shop, we're good. All right. All right, Patty. Best piece of advice anybody ever gave you?

Best piece of advice. This was when I started my last job outside of our business. The then president of the company that I worked for, when I first started, said, "Make friends with everybody in other departments. " Of course.

Build those relationships. Make friends. And in the 16 years I was with that company, it really paid off in spades. " I'm like, "Yeah.

" Well, I just asked her. And I think it was because I had built those friendships, those relationships, those good working relationships. And I think that translates to really any business or any job, building those relationships, which we talked about earlier. about earlier with the manufacturers with building a partnership yeah absolutely with our reps and um i think and with our customers too yeah building that relationship where they come in and they feel like you care about them right nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care right so that that is a great great yeah i like that very nice busted out at the very end it's fantastic all right mario topper you gotta see if you can top her it's the best piece of advice So, I've had two pieces of advice, one business related, one personal, and I think, and I'm kind of glad that I listened to the podcast because if you get caught off guard with these questions, you leave here and then you go, wow, they're really, I mean, there's these other things that really meant so much more.

Right. So, I've always been a big listener of motivational speakers, entrepreneurs, and things like that. Way, way back, I'm talking 15, 20 years ago, I used to listen to a lot of Zig Ziglar. I was going to say Zig Ziglar.

Zig Ziglar, I mean, he's the master motivator, right? Zig Ziglar once said that if you help enough other people get what they want, in return you'll have what you want. And so I think that is really powerful because I see it now in the shop sometimes, you know, people coming in for donations, And support this, and can you support that? Can you give me a basket?

Can you do stuff? And, you know, sometimes it hurts, because, you know, all that is off the bottom line, and, but it's part of the price of being involved in the community. So I think it's important that you understand that, right? I'm not saying give the house away, but it's understand that.

And on a personal note, I think the best piece of advice I got, and they don't know they gave me this advice, I heard them say it once, and it was so profound, and it was so profound. found to me at the time it's better to be kind than right right and i mean how many times don't we were so hell-bent on communicating our point of view right even though it's correct you may be have a fact-based argument for whatever the discussion is yeah and sometimes it's just better to better to give in it's just it's okay right yeah just try and understand the other That's okay to say, it's -- So who said that to you? Uh, Cindy Griffin. Cindy Griffin from Demo Sales.

I used to work with her a lot. She's a very Christian woman. Right. And, uh, yeah, she -- I heard her say that once, and it's better to be kind than it is to be right.

And it just stuck with you. That was just so powerful. Right. It's crazy, you know, sometimes you hear something and it really kind of changes your whole course of action moving forward in life, you know?

It happens a lot at home with Patty's mom, you know. So, you know, Paddy's mom is, you know, she's a one-upper, she's, she, if you did it, she did it better than you ever happened to you, it happened worse to her, we could be talking about a bottle of water, and somehow that bottle of water comes back to a conversation about her. Right. She's, she's constantly, and Paddy will, will just go to the map with her on being right, and sometimes you just, you gotta let it go, man.

Yeah. You gotta let it go. Yeah, with, you know, the conversations being had, and then they just can't wait till you finish, so that they could say their story. They're pouncing on you, yeah.

Awesome. All right, Mario, favorite cigar. What is your favorite cigar? That is a moving target.

And it sure is? And it's not a, it is because, so for example, prior to IPCPR last year, I hadn't had the Cohiba Blue Label because it wasn't even out. And I hadn't had a Black Diamond because it wasn't even out. And so, prior to that, I was a big My Father and Cordova Morales smoker.

So, I think, since I've had those two cigars, those two in particular are my go-tos now. So, that could change after this IPCPR, whenever there's new releases. It could change next week, you know. There's always something else out there.

There's always somebody, you know, with a new recipe, if you will. And so, I think that's always a moving target. But right now, it would have to be the Cohiba Blue Label. It's the Blue Label and the Black Diamond.

Awesome. And Patti? And Patti? Your favorite cigar?

That is tough. I have a lot of favorites, but definitely since the Black Diamond came out, that's one of my tops. Right. That cigar is absolutely exquisite.

I am a big Cordoba Morales fan. The Double Figurado, Platino Double Figurado is one of my tops. Right. Right.

The Aroma de Cuba Reserva is also… The what? The what? Aroma de Cuba. Okay, I'll say it in gringo.

Aroma de Cuba. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for translating for me.

I appreciate that. Is that better? Yes. Thank you.

But yeah, it is a moving target, and it also depends on anything by Diamond Crown. Right. But again… You're a big fan. I'm a big fan, yeah.

It depends on what I'm, the time of day, what I'm drinking, what I've eaten, my mood, 'cause I'll, I'll smoke anything from mild to full body. - For sure. That's cool, but you know, it sounds like the Black Diamond is, is your winner. - Right now, that's, yeah, that cigar is pretty amazing.

- Right. When I first had that cigar, I didn't know whether to smoke it, eat it, or fuck it. It was just that good for me. It was just amazing, amazing cigar.

I'm sure the Newmans would love to hear that. Well, they will. They will. They're fans.

They're fans of the show. Okay, what fictional character would you like to share your cigar with? We'll go with Mario first this time. J.

Jonah Jameson. Who's that? Spider-Man's boss. Spider-Man's boss, the guy that owns the newspaper.

Okay, cool. A particular one? There's been several actors that have portrayed him. Was it movie or comic book?

Or it doesn't matter? Comic book. Comic book. Very nice.

So why did you pick him? He's always got a cigar in his mouth. That's true. You've got to love other cigar smokers.

I mean, cigars are the ultimate equalizer. Right. You know, in our shop, you could have the Chief Justice of Tampa sitting next to a roofer, and they're having a conversation. Right.

So for me, yeah, I would love to. He's just so big and loud and over the top. Yeah, I like him. Wow, he answered it so fast, because they know.

Because they know. Because they know the questions. They know. All right, Patty.

All right, Patty. Fictional character. I kept settling. Not settling.

I kept coming back to Wolverine. Yeah? Yeah. Very nice.

That's a good one. Because he's always running around with a cigar in his mouth and being badass, so. That's awesome. So you guys are, like, kind of comic fans.

Casually. I am kind of more. Yeah. You know, if I had to pick a fictional character, it would be T.

Jonas Jameson. And it took me a while to think about it because, you know, because I'm not a big comic guy. Right. You know, and I'm going back, right?

I mean, I was born in 63, so this is going way, way back. It's not a modern comic. True. I had to think about it.

That's awesome. Yeah, I had to give it some thought. Yeah. I couldn't think of it.

And there's not, sadly, there's not a lot of female fictional characters that smoke cigars that I can think of. But even if they didn't smoke a cigar, like, let's say, you know, you came across this fictional character, and you're gonna introduce them to cigars, would there be somebody else? I mean, I would, like, leave that span as kind of... Yeah, we've never actually said they had to be a cigar.

That's true. That's true. That's a good question. They may want to fly around one woman's invisible jet and smoke cigars, or...

No, still Wolverine. Ah, yeah. He is cooler. He is pretty cool.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, not that I wouldn't want to spend a couple of hours with Catwoman or something, you know what I'm saying. Right, yeah, for sure.

Just putting that out there. But that's DC, now you're going a totally different direction. Yeah. You know?

Patty's a Marvel gal. So, you know, is there anybody else that you can think of off the top of your head? Um... " I had to sabotage it.

Yeah. actually um what was that angelina dolly character in where she was the russian spy we just salt salt that'd be cool she was pretty badass there you go that is an excellent she's actually play i i love her action roles because she's she's a badass yeah lara croft eon flux i think right no no that was uh the blonde from uh yeah it wasn't no yeah damn it lara she lara croft tomb raider yeah right But not anymore, now you've got a new Tomb Raider. Yeah, there's a new girl, Mr. and Mrs.

Smith. That was another good one, for sure. Oh, I can see that character smoking a cigar. Totally.

After they torched the house and beat up the house, is in there smoking a cigar. All right, what else? Now, how'd they get a hold of you? Your shop's website, your social media contacts, give out the phone number if you want to.

com. We're on Facebook, Cigar Life Lakeland, and Instagram, Cigar_Life_Lakeland. All right, does that cover all of them, Mario, or is there one for you specifically? No.

com. Awesome. Give out the phone number for the shop. 863-603-8495.

Awesome. There you go. Perfect. Well, hey, you know, I appreciate you guys driving an hour and a half to come all the way out here and just do the podcast with us.

I haven't met you guys, so putting in the effort and establishing that relationship is awesome. That speaks volumes for me. We really appreciate you having us. Thank you.

Thank you so much for coming. Yes, thank you. I've known him quite a few years, so that's why it's kind of quiet. All the questions you were asking, I've already had these conversations with him.

So I didn't want to jump in there with their answers because you get mad at me. Well, you're always kind of quiet. I don't get mad when you chime in with questions. No, you get mad when I chime in with answers to their questions.

Yeah, well I'm like, so Mario, what did you do before? Oh, he worked at Publix. Oh, Mike! Calm the fuck down.

but no i mean shameless plug here though yeah absolutely that's something you should include shameless plug fcc the florida cigar club mike oh thank you all the members have been a tremendous very supportive support yeah they do smokes and jokes once a month on tuesdays that are two nights movie night first tuesday of every month i believe yeah yeah first tuesday of every night they they're every one of the shop they're great friends of the shop uh people come from as far as where josh lives he's like an hour and a half away yeah he's gone on this week um so we have a lot of fcc members at the shop and they've been a great support to our shop so that's also you guys treat us you treat us nice i mean like i said it's like family when you show up there yeah that's a big deal you should be proud mike i said thank you you're awesome well i don't go as often as i should but it wouldn't happen if it wasn't for you well it's my wife it wouldn't And that's a story for another episode. We should interview you. We were talking about that. We're going to interview each other for an episode.

Alright. I'm going to answer your questions. That's okay. I'll answer yours.

Alright, well that's it. Thank you again, Patty and Mario. Alright, and that's it. Bye.

That's it, folks. Show's over. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can leave them on our Facebook page at CigarHustlersPodcast. You can follow the show on Instagram @CigarHustlersPodcast.

You can follow Mikey @CigarHustlersPodcast. You can follow Mikey @CigarHustlersPodcast. Thank you.

Show Notes

Continuing our "Getting to Know Your Retailer" Series, we chat with Mario and Patty Medina from Cigar Life, Lakeland Florida.  Learn how many many years of Planning has made them the premier cigar location in Lakeland, Florida!

We welcome your comments, suggestions and guest request on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast".  You can follow the show on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast, Mikey @cigarhustler and Mike @floridacigarclub_mike.

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