Lounges cater to hookahs and shisha tobacco smokers

By Brendan Watson
08/18/2004

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When Sleiman Bathani opened Al-Tarboush Cafe, a Lebanese restaurant in the University City loop, he didn't expect that the hookahs he sold there would become a major part of his business. Today, he can't keep the elaborate hookahs, which cost from $20 to $170, in stock.

"Back home in Lebanon, it was older men who smoked hookahs," Bathani said through his daughter Annie Bathani, who translated her father's Arabic. "But now, it's like cigars. Women and young people are beginning to smoke hookahs as well, and they're suddenly popular."

While Bathani's cafe just deals in hookah sales, two local bars boast actual hookah lounges. Both U in The Loop and Nik's Wine Bar and Hookah Lounge in the DeBaliviere Place neighborhood draw a hip crowd of twenty- and thirtysomethings who come to smoke in comfort.

At U, the sister lounge to the Eastgate Avenue restaurant 609, it costs $15 to smoke a hookah. The bar also offers a hookah package for four, including use of a private lounge, drinks and appetizers, for $125.

At Nik's, it costs $9 to smoke the hooka, which lasts up to 45 minutes.

"Smoking hookahs is a great communal activity, and it's very relaxing," said Vivek Mittal, 27, a doctoral student at Washington University and a regular customer at Nik's, 307 Belt Avenue. "It's also a great way to introduce your friends to a new experience."

Nik's owner Kurt Newsome said the pipe's novelty, especially its exotic appearance, is a large part of the appeal. A clump of smoldering charcoal ignites the molasses-soaked tobacco, or shisha, which sits on a metal base atop a 2-foot-tall glass pipe. The smoker sucks the tobacco through a reservoir of water and out the bottom of the ornately decorated hookah by drawing on a colorful hose.

Multiple hoses can accommodate up to eight smokers. These exotic pipes are a novelty in American hookah lounges. They originated in 17th century Ottoman Turkey, and even their Western pop-culture roots reach back generations.

"I had to come here because I grew up on 'Alice in Wonderland,' in which the caterpillar smokes hookahs. I thought that was really cool," said John, 25, a regular customer at Nik's, who gave only his first name.

Since Lewis Carroll's 1865 classic, hookah smoking has further permeated Western, and in particular, American pop-culture. That's why Annie Bathani theorizes that it is becoming more popular.

"More American songs have Arabic beats in the background, and artists are making music videos with belly dancers, which are played over and over again on TV," she said.

Sleiman Bathani, however, offers a different theory. He says that, traditionally, shisha, which he sells for about $6, wasn't flavored. Now, though, it's manufactured in dozens of flavors that appeal to Americans' palates.

At 609, co-owner Bernie Lee serves nine flavors of hookah tobacco.

"I always thought tobacco was tobacco, but that's not the case," said Lee, whose favorite flavors are honey, mint and double apple. Nik's even offers a cappuccino-flavored hookah tobacco, which masks both the taste and aroma that many nonsmokers dislike about cigarettes and cigars.

"Hookah tobacco tastes really great, and it doesn't hurt your lungs - at least it doesn't feel like you're hurting your lungs," said Pooja Mittal, 27, who is completing her residency in family medicine at Washington University. She occasionally smokes a hookah with her husband, Vivek, though she frowns on his cigar habit.