After 11 years, Joseph “Smokey Joe” Hendrix retiring, closing the cigar lounge (in Springfield, Massachusetts) but partnering on a new cigar venture

[JohnS]

After 11 years, Joseph “Smokey Joe” Hendrix retiring, closing the cigar lounge but partnering on a new cigar venture

Published: Dec. 11, 2025 by Jim Kinney 

Joe Hendrix is closing the doors to Smokey Joe's Cigar Lounge on Dwight Street in the new year and plans to take a back seat at the new location on Worthington Street. Dec. 11, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican) Douglas Hook

SPRINGFIELD — The ash is growing long at Smokey Joe’s Cigar Lounge.

And the Thursday afternoon lunch club of regulars is meeting here for one of the last times.

After 10 years on the second floor of 395 Dwight St., Joseph Hendrix is closing his business. He’s told members to clean out their private humidors lockers by the end of the year. The last day is Dec. 31.

“Retirement is calling,” Hendrix said. “It’s been great. We’ve had great times. Great people.”

But Smokey Joe’s was already a second career. A cigar smoker since his days in the Army, Hendrix opened the shop and lounge nearly 11 years ago after working in human resources for an engineering firm.

Joe Hendrix is closing the doors to Smokey Joe's Cigar Lounge on Dwight Street in the new year and plans to take a back seat at the new location on Worthington Street. Dec. 11, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican) Douglas Hook

A short-lived location on the ground floor of the McIntosh Condominiums closed when city health officials wouldn’t renew the smoking permit in a residential building. He moved to 395 Dwight St. — long known as the Mardi Gras building — in 2017.

It’s a great location, he said. Up a long flight of stairs, the small cigar shop gives way to an invitingly cluttered lounge where the low, fading December sunshine played in billowing smoke.

But today, Smokey Joe’s is one of the last tenants in the Mardi Gras building that could be demolished under one of many competing proposals for a new courthouse.

The Mardi Gras strip club closed in 2023. Hendrix said the 350 Grill Restaurant is also closed. A hair salon on the first floor of the building — below Smokey Joe’s — is leaving at the end of the month as well, Hendrix said.

But Hendricks — who is from Chicago and now lives in Springfield — isn’t going away.

Hendrix says he’ll help start a new cigar lounge — with a new name — he’s creating with Raipher D. Pellegrino as part of Pelligrino’s dining-and-entertainment redevelopment of Worthington Street.

But only as a silent partner.

“I will get the place up and running,” Hendrix said. “I’ll make sure the humidor is properly stocked.”

He said he was going to retire all the way.

Cliff Frost, pictured, John Sagan and Carlos Escobar come to enjoy cigars and bourbon at Smokey Joe's Cigar Lounge most Thursdays. Dec. 11, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican) Douglas Hook

“Raipher pulled me back in,” Hendrix said. “He said I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Pellegrino said work has already begun on the space which will be near restaurants either already open or soon-to-open and planned a 250- to 400-seat music hall.

“That whole entertainment district is really coming together,” Pellegrino said.

The new shop will have both a walk-in retail component and a members-only lounge.

And he’s leaning on Hendrix’s expertise.

Hendrix said the basics are easy.

“The goal is to pair the right cigar with the right drink,” he said. “And most often, that is going to be bourbon.”

His bar stocks 300 bourbons.

Owner of Smokey Joe's Cigar Lounge, Joe Hendrix, said he likens his lounge with the bar Cheers on the old television show. Dec. 11, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican) Douglas Hook

And it’s important to remember the three parts of a cigar, the filler in the center, the binder in the middle and the wrapper outside.

And all three tobaccos could come from different countries. with the best wrappers coming from right here in the Connecticut River Valley.

Those individual humidors members have are marked with names. One is “Big Mamou.”

It’s the locker of Chef Wayne Hooker, who ran Big Mamou restaurants for 30 years and was a friend of Hendrix and a presence in Smokey Joe’s.

Hooker died in November just months after partnering with Pellegrino on the now reopened Mamou, also on Worthington.

“That was my buddy,” Hendrix said. “I had a lot of good times with Chef Wayne.”

Source: https://www.masslive.com/business/2025/12/after-11-years-joseph-smokey-joe-hendrix-retiring-closing-the-cigar-lounge-but-partnering-on-a-new-cigar-venture.html

[BrightonCorgi]

Springfield is closer to New Haven, CT than Boston so it has a different personality than the eastern side of MA. An MGM casino opened in Springfield as well.  Didn't know there were any cigar lounges there.