‘We made history with this one’: Why a new Fort Mill cigar bar isn’t what you’d expect
A friendship birthed from a lobster dinner bet has grown into something York County hasn’t seen before.
The Royal Cigar Bar & Bistro is now open in Fort Mill.
A grand opening is set for June 4. The 3,000-square-foot spot not far from Carowinds combines a premium cigar lounge with a custom made bar and full restaurant.
“This is not a nightclub,” said co-owner Maliek Carrington, partners in the new business with husband and wife pair David and Shantelle Cintron. “This is not a bar. We’re a cigar bar and bistro. Imagine being able to smoke a cigar in a restaurant and relax, because it’s all like-minded people.”
The business at 338 Springhill Farm Road has a custom humidor with Julius Caeser, Plasencia, White Label and other cigars. There are chocolates to pair with them.
The humidor opens at 2 p.m. each day except Tuesdays. The restaurant opens at 5 p.m. Annual memberships are $25 for access to the main lounge area in front of the bar, or $250 with full access to a variety of private rooms and some discounts.
“We’re doing something other people can’t do,” Carrington said.
The permitting alone was significant, to allow smoking with a restaurant and bar. Many smoke shops bring in outside food trucks, but it was important to the owners to have everything in-house.
“The three of us were here every day for nine months working on this,” Carrington said. “It was an abandoned little warehouse. We found it was empty. We’ve done everything. This is really a restaurant that has an accessory as a bar. It’s a restaurant with an accessory as a cigar (bar). So we followed all laws and rules.”
Shantelle Cintron, an event planner, always wanted to have her own restaurant. She will have a Caribbean menu, among other items.
“Fried red snapper, curry chicken, salmon bites, chicken wings,” Shantelle Cintron said. “I’ve been cooking all my life.”
Carrington has a real estate firm with almost 20 people, and teaches 15-20 heating and air conditioning students a year through SC Works. The Cintrons moved to the area more than two years ago from New York, and it was an HVAC class — David is a contractor — where the co-owners first met.
The first day of class, Carrington offered to treat the student who scored highest marks with a lobster dinner.
“I said get the butter and the cracker ready, brother, because I’m going to be that person,” David Cintron said. “And I was.”
The pair talked, flipped some houses together and envisioned future partnerships.
“What is something that we really want to do for the community?” David Cintron said. “What’s our passion? And this is it.”
For Carrington, a Lake Wylie resident who is committed to keeping his businesses on the South Carolina side of the state line, it’s about improving and contributing to the area.
“Charlotte has enough,” he said. “And a lot of people from Charlotte will come here, but I built this for South Carolina.”
The location should benefit the business.
“Individuals have nowhere else to go in this area for a good cigar,” Carrington said. “We have Pineville, Rock Hill, Charlotte, Fort Mill — all within two to three minutes.”
Owners hope the new business will bring communities together.
There are bike, ladies, and Latino nights planned, plus a night that will cater to workers in the barber and beauty salon industry. There will be a Caribbean night. Friday nights will be bourbon and bow ties, where folks can dress up for a night out. Owners see the new spot as prime for social and business networking.
Carrington said people often don’t want to smoke in their own homes, just one reason cigar bars are doing well of late.
“During the pandemic wine sales went up, cigar sales went up,” Carrington said. “Because we had to find things, so that we didn’t realize our kids were that bad. Now you’re stuck home two years with them, realizing there’s a reason why that teacher wrote you, ‘come get little mama.’”
The Cintrons, with seven grown children, laugh off that explanation.
“I don’t know if that’s what it is, but I got introduced to smoking cigars once I met him,” David Cintron said. “I’ve never really smoked cigars in my life. I tried it here and there for occasions, somebody’s getting married or something. But he introduced me to this culture of cigars and it resonated well with me.”
The reason, David Cintron said, is in various stops at cigar spots throughout the region -- ahead of his own opening -- there was a consistent theme. People came together and had conversation beyond surface deep. He found a place for networking, socializing and learning.
Something the Royal owners hope to duplicate, but in a way new and fresh to the area.
“We made history with this one,” Carrington said.
This story was originally published May 20, 2022 at 3:26 PM.
