Cigar Lounge Near Pasadena: 15 Minutes from Old Town

Another Option for Pasadena Smokers

Old Town Pasadena has 200 restaurants. Dozens of bars. A movie theater with reclining seats. Wine bars, cocktail lounges, rooftop patios with views of the mountains.

And if you’re a cigar smoker who wants something different – a place with BYOB, no membership fees, and late-night hours – there’s an option just fifteen minutes east.

It’s in Arcadia. And it’s closer than you think.

Fifteen Minutes

Take Colorado east out of Old Town. Or hop on the 210 and exit Santa Anita. Either way, you’re at Hemingway Cigars in about fifteen minutes – probably less time than it took to find parking near Vroman’s.

The lounge sits on First Avenue, half a block south of Colorado Boulevard in downtown Arcadia. Street parking is easy. The door is usually propped open when the weather cooperates.

Inside: 1,100 square feet of climate-controlled space with state-of-the-art air filtration, a walk-in humidor stocked with 35+ brands, and the kind of seating that makes you forget you were supposed to be somewhere else.

What Sets Hemingway Apart

Indoor cigar smoking in California is rare. The regulations killed most of it. What remains are the grandfathered spaces – lounges that existed before the laws changed and have kept their permits through sheer persistence.

Hemingway is one of them. The space has been a cigar lounge since 2012, first as Robusto Cigars, now as Hemingway. The permit transferred with the business. The filtration system was upgraded. The result is a room where you can smoke a cigar indoors, in air conditioning or heat depending on the season, without asking anyone’s permission.

This is not a patio. This is not a sidewalk with an awning. This is an actual room with walls and a ceiling and chairs designed for sitting, not perching.

Worth the Drive

The drive from Pasadena is short. The reason to make it is the experience.

A walk-in humidor with Padron, Arturo Fuente, Liga Privada, My Father, and thirty other brands. Boutique lines from Black Works Studio, Crowned Heads, and Aganorsa Leaf. Every stick maintained at perfect humidity.

BYOB – bring your whiskey, your beer, your coffee, whatever you drink with a cigar. No corkage. No bartender. Just your bottle and your glass.

No membership required to walk in. No cover charge. No time limit on your chair. Just buy a cigar from the humidor, find a seat, and stay as long as the cigar lasts.

Open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Until 10 PM weeknights. The drive back to Pasadena at 11:30 PM takes about twelve minutes. Less traffic.

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