Jimmy Lewis had dreamt of opening his own cigar lounge since college, when he noticed a gap in the Virginia market: People were driving over an hour from Roanoke to Lynchburg just to buy cigars and sit in a proper lounge. Roanoke, he thought, might have enough cigar lovers to support a lounge of its own.
So, a decade later, Lewis took an enormous risk by moving his family thereand trying to turn his dream into reality.
That dream became the Bison Head Cigar & Lounge in downtown Roanoke. The lounge is comfortable, unpretentious, and full of easy conversation. It is the kind of place where strangers can sit next to each other, light up, and find that the only thing they have in common is “a bundle of rolled-up leaves,” Lewis tells Reason…