"I've never seen so many dead people smoking before." - Old joke
The cigar-bar boomlet of the late '90s and early aughts seems like the merest blip, a dimly remembered celebration of those blunt instruments of strutting testosterone, replaced currently by — what? — beards, brewpubs and vapor lounges.
The Cigar Room at Javier's Gourmet Mexicano is no blip. It was a proud fortress for puffing on Davidoffs and Montecristos with a side of Cragganmore or Patron before the hot-listers gave that a whirl. And it still is.
Owner Javier Gutierrez went to extraordinary expense to maintain the lounge's tobacconist character after the 2003 ban on smoking in Dallas restaurants. Walking into the Cigar Room now sets off a nostalgic shock. The pungent, invasive, insistent aroma that used to be commonplace has settled into this olfactory museum located close by what's described, almost by writ, as the "leafy enclave" of Highland Park.
The dapper Gutierrez works the room with silky ease. He knows everybody who knows everybody. Walls bristle with stuffed wildlife and signed photographs of famous visitors. A flat-screen mounted high runs the Golf Channel or whatever the evening’s big game is on mute. The clientele tilts heavily male, of course. Self-assurance flows freely — the smoke-blowing is not all literal.
This clubby spot can be an expensive place to drink. The bar menus are lighted but not completely illuminating. A humble rum bumped up a notch ordered on the rocks and more besides “for the tax collector,” plus the tip. Goodbye, double sawbuck.
Javier's, 4912 Cole Ave., Dallas. 214-521-4211. javiers.net.
Staff columnist Alan Peppard contributed to this report.
Photo gallery: Jose Cuervo tequila tasting at Javier's
