Tchin Tchin Bar, the Chinatown rooftop lounge that closed in May after 11 years, is coming back to Hotel Street next month with a new twist: cigars alongside its wine and cocktails. The bar targets a September 4 reopening under new ownership, this time built around premium whiskey, wine and cigar pairings rather than the wine-bar identity it built its name on.
The revival comes from Ricardo Smith, who bought Tchin Tchin Bar from Breaking Bread Hospitality Group, according to HONOLULU Magazine. Smith, a former owner of Red Bar on Nu‘uanu Avenue, also owns The Royal Leaf Cigar Lounge, located two doors down from Tchin Tchin on Hotel Street. The new venue will operate as Tchin Tchin Bar by The Royal Leaf, with Cevi Rocha-Cevidanes serving as operating manager of the reopened bar while also acting as general manager of The Royal Leaf Cigar Lounge.
Rocha-Cevidanes told the magazine that the new owners wanted to restore vitality to Hotel Street, and the concept leans into that goal by keeping the bar's industrial interior look while giving the rooftop a new distillery feel. The space will add more rooftop seating and refurbished rooftop couches, plus a dedicated rooftop cigar section. Rocha-Cevidanes has curated the well selections, including Traveller Whiskey, Uncle Val's gins and Myers's Rum.
Cigars, Cocktails and No Cutting Fee
Each cocktail and mocktail on the new menu will come with a suggested cigar pairing, and customers can either bring their own cigars or buy them on-site — with no cigar cutting fee charged, according to the same report. Jesse Cruz, who co-founded Tchin Tchin Bar in 2015 alongside Dusty Grable, will provide a small menu of bar bites for the reopened lounge. The bar will also offer new house cocktails and mocktails and feature live music, with Rocha-Cevidanes describing the new clientele as more mature than the crowd the bar previously drew.
The concept works because Hawaii's clean air rules give cigar lounges little room to operate indoors. Under the state's Smoke-Free Law, HRS Chapter 328J, smoking and vaping are barred in all enclosed or partially enclosed public spaces and workplaces, including bars, lanais and patios closed in by a roof and two or three walls, according to Honolulu Police Department guidance on the statute. Unenclosed rooftop areas remain legal for tobacco smoking as long as distance rules from entrances and windows are met, which makes Tchin Tchin's open-air lanai essential to the cigar concept rather than incidental to it.
Timed to The Royal Leaf's First Anniversary
The September 4 date is not arbitrary. The Royal Leaf Cigar Lounge originally opened at 47 N. Hotel St. in September 2025, so the reopening lands right around the private club's one-year anniversary, as Hawaii Public Radio reported. The grand reopening celebration will feature live music headlined by local blues artist Keith Batlin, and for food, the new venture is partnering with neighboring Livestock Tavern at 49 N. Hotel St. to supply dishes for patrons alongside the cocktail and cigar offerings.
While Tchin Tchin Bar by The Royal Leaf will welcome the public, Smith's flagship Royal Leaf operates on a very different model two doors down. That location runs as a private, members-only club billed as “The Royal Sanctuary,” offering $30 to $50 daily passes and $450 monthly memberships that include humidor locker amenities, per the club's own site. The Hotel Street rooftop reopening effectively extends Smith's cigar-lounge business into a publicly accessible format for the first time.
A Name Rooted in an Old European Toast
The bar's name carries its own backstory. “Tchin Tchin” traces to the Chinese expression “qing qing,” meaning “please, please” or a polite toast, which soldiers returning from the Opium Wars carried back to Europe, where it evolved into a widespread drinking toast across France and the continent, according to Wanderlog. Tchin Tchin Bar was originally established in 2015 by Chef Jesse Cruz and Dusty Grable under Breaking Bread Hospitality Group, the same team behind the earlier landmark restaurant Lucky Belly, which opened in 2012 and helped spur Chinatown's culinary renaissance. Hoodline covered the bar back in 2019, when it was rated Honolulu's top-rated wine bar on Yelp.
Turnover Along Hotel Street
Tchin Tchin's return arrives amid broader churn on Chinatown's historic Hotel Street drinking corridor. Newer arrivals Encore Saloon, Grondin and Fête have all opened in the neighborhood, and The Pig & The Lady opened after Lucky Belly and Livestock Tavern established the strip's dining reputation. But the district has also seen loss: Smith's Union Bar, Honolulu's oldest continually operating bar, founded on Hotel Street in 1934, was forced to prepare for closure in mid-2026 after its landlord declined to renew its lease, according to KHON2.
Parking access remains a live concern for the district's nightlife businesses. In May, Bank of Hawaii purchased Chinatown's 308-space Mark's Garage on Nu‘uanu Avenue for $16.5 million to convert it into employee parking, a move Hoodline reported would tighten downtown parking supply near Hotel Street establishments. Whether the reduced parking inventory affects turnout for Tchin Tchin's cigar-focused relaunch remains to be seen, but it adds one more variable to a stretch of Chinatown navigating both revival and disruption at once.
Tchin Tchin Bar by The Royal Leaf is set to open Thursday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. and Sunday from 5 p.m. to midnight, staying closed Monday through Wednesday, according to the venue's own site. The address remains 39 N. Hotel St. in Chinatown, the same spot Tchin Tchin has occupied throughout its run.
