How to Start a Hookah Lounge

If your looking for a trendy, urban business to get started, this could be just exactly what your looking for!  Hookah Lounges aren’t as bad as the name sounds, what they are is kind of like a mix between a coffee shop, and a small bar.  Five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought that this business would have been one you should have looked into, but since the smoking bans, a lot more people are seeking out lounges like this to spend their free time.  Now, that being said, a Hookah Bar is not a place for cigarettes smokers to knock out a pack of cowboy killers a night, it is a place for people to hang out at and be social and smoke Hookah (not cigarettes, and not weed).

Before I dive to much deeper into how to get it started, check out this video I grabbed off of YouTube, so you can understand the vibe at one of these lounges.

As you can see, a Hookah Lounge is just a different kind of night spot, but that is not all they are for.  I do not smoke, and I don’t particularly enjoy Hookah either, but I have stopped by a couple of these places during the day, and it really is pretty neat.  It looks a lot like what you would see in your local coffee house during the day, there are college kids sitting around with laptops doing homework, or hanging out on Facebook, and groups of friends sitting around talking about their weeks.

How to get started: Location, location location!  Finding the right spot for your bar is going to be the key to being profitable or not.  You want to find a good spot preferably close to a college hang out area, or a popular night spot.  Before you make an offer on a building, or sign a long term lease, you are going to want to check with your local Chamber of Commerce, to make sure you can get the proper licenses you need.  The rule for getting your license that will allow your patrons to smoke is; you need 80 percent of your revenue to come from tobacco related products.  Well that will be easy to do in this business.

Once you have the permits you need to do business, it’s time to start planning for success.  Make sure you design your place for a social gathering.  You will want couches and tables, but you don’t really want booths like in a traditional bar, this is a place for people to come together and hang out, so setting your bar for privacy isn’t really ideal.  Have a strong wireless internet connection available, and a few TVs playing the news (this is always good for striking up conversation).  Make sure you have a small stage where you can have local bands and poets come play and recite poetry.   The long and the short of it is, you want a nice inviting gathering place for people to be social.

Marketing: Getting people in the door will be easy if you are in the right location.  Most of your customers are going to be very trendy or college aged people, and 75 percent of those people are into some form of social media.  Think about inviting your local social media guys out for a Tweet-up, or running ads on Facebook.  This will create a great buzz for your bar, and bring a lot of open minded people through the door.  Invite local poets, artists, bands, and comedians to perform, and promote it in the local papers, and through every outlet you can through the colleges.  Think about inviting the local radio stations to host their morning shows from your bar once a month or so.

Summary:  Hookah Bars are a quick growing trend, and if you can get one opened in your city before anyone else, you are guaranteed to have a very popular, very profitable business.  You don’t need a huge building with lots of fancy furniture, a good hole in the wall with some bean bag chairs, and decent music will be fine.  Remember, its about the experience, not the luxuries.

Resources:

• South Smoke:  South Smoke is a great place for buying supplies such as pipes and other miscellaneous needs.
• Hookah Masters:   More Supplies.
• Hookah Culture:  A directory for Hookah locations
• Inside Hookah:  A magazine with articles about the culture, and recipes for different flavored tobacco.
• Hookah Forum:  An online forum for Hookah fans.
• Hookah Lounger:  Online Hookah Magazine.
• Social Smoke:  A good place for ordering Shisha wholesale(flavored tobaco)