A new lounge has settled into West Tampa's long cigar-soaked landscape, pairing humidors with espresso and a menu that includes burritos. Roosters Cigars and Coffee has opened at 3103 N Howard Ave, offering premium cigars, coffee and tea alongside food options in a space built for lingering.
According to That's So Tampa, the lounge's physical space includes a decorated interior and exterior, tiled floors, and cigar humidors, and the publication frames it as a place to socialize and try something new. Roosters allows guests to smoke both inside and outside, per that report, and the site describes its cigar brand selection as rivaling most other Tampa cigar lounges. A Yelp listing for the business, updated this October, confirms the address and describes the venue as offering premium cigars and great coffee with a separate area set aside for smoking.
Reviewers on the platform have been warming up to the new arrival. One Yelp review called the atmosphere comfortable and laid-back, the kind of place that makes it easy to stay awhile, while another reviewer singled out the iced Carlitos Way drink and the chorizo burrito as delicious, though they wished the chorizo brought a bit more spice. The same Yelp listing also notes Roosters met its preoperational health inspection requirements.
A Neighborhood Built on Tobacco
Roosters is opening into a city with cigar-making in its bones. Tampa's history traces to Vicente Martinez-Ybor, who moved his cigar-making operations from Cuba to Florida, laying the groundwork for what became Ybor City, according to That's So Tampa. At the industry's peak, more than 200 cigar factories in Tampa produced 500 million cigars annually, a legacy that Tampa Magazine says has woven cigars into the city's cultural fabric.
That history still shapes the local lounge scene Roosters is joining. Tampa Magazine points to Corona Cigar Co. on W. Boy Scout Blvd., with its fully humidified retail space, multiple lounges, full bar and patio, as one anchor of that scene. King Corona, with locations in Ybor City and at International Plaza, mixes coffee, cigars, food, wine and beer under one roof, the magazine notes, while Grand Cathedral Cigars was named Cigar Journal's Best Lounge in the World for 2022.
How Roosters Stacks Up Against Tampa's Cigar Giants
Grand Cathedral offers a sense of how large Tampa's cigar lounges can grow. The three-story venue spans 6,000 square feet of indoor space plus several thousand more square feet of outdoor seating, according to premiumcigars.org, which also reports the lounge employs 17 people across its retail, lounge, bar and coffee operations and draws an early-morning crowd that mixes coffee, cigars and remote work. Grand Cathedral held its soft opening on January 23, 2021, with a grand opening six months later, the outlet reports.
Elsewhere around the bay, Tampa Magazine notes that Central Cigars in St. Petersburg opened in the late 1990s and saw its owners add Ruby's Elixir next door in 2011, while Cigar Paradise Royal Lounge was founded by a fourth-generation Cuban Grand Master of handmade cigars. Roosters enters that company as a newer, smaller addition, with That's So Tampa reporting the lounge plans to add further offerings down the line.
For now, Roosters gives West Tampa another spot where a cup of coffee and a cigar can share the same table, with a chorizo burrito on the side if you're hungry. The lounge's blend of tiled floors, humidors and food is drawing early praise from Yelp reviewers who say the staff, cigar selection and coffee make it worth a visit.
