Tobacco ties

McALLEN — When Demetrio Petrides was 8 years old, his father gave the little boy and his sisters a cigar to smoke.

The intention was for the children to get sick and have no desire to smoke again.

That’s not exactly how it panned out.

“My two sisters and myself smoked the cigar all the way,” Petrides said.

“And we asked for another one. So my dad knew we were in trouble.”

It wasn’t until years later that he had another cigar; today, he’s smoking two or three a day.

But smoking comes with the territory of being a fourth-generation cigar shop owner.

Cigars, Petrides said, are “in the family blood.”

Petrides’ great-grandfather, also named Demetrio, had planned on moving from his home in Greece to New York City.

But on a trip to Mexico, he met his two loves — a woman and cigars — so he stayed and opened a cigar store in Mexico City in 1905.

“The rest,” Petrides said, “is history.”

Petrides’ grandfather, Triciboulous, inherited the Mexico City store.

Then his father, Alfonso, moved to McAllen, bought a cigar store at El Centro Mall in Pharr and renamed it Casa Petrides, in honor of the original shop.

In 1993, Petrides bought the store from his father.

Today, it’s located at a shopping center on Dove Avenue, near 10th Street. This month marks the store’s 30th anniversary in McAllen.

Though the original Mexico City shop is gone, Petrides pays homage to his roots by displaying a plaque from the first Casa Petrides store in his own shop.

As a kid, Petrides says, he would help his dad maintain the store, learning about the cigar business along the way.

It only seemed natural for him to enter the same line of work.

“You just carry on the family tradition,” Petrides says.

Not that running a cigar store feels much like work.

“I really enjoy everything in my shop,” Petrides says. “I just love what I do.

“You kind of learn it, and then you kind of just relate to it. I love smoking cigars, and I love talking about cigars and relaxing and talking a little bit about wine. … It’s just what I do.”

Today, the cigar store boasts more than just stogies.

With a lineup of wine, flasks, humidors, shaving accessories and walking canes, Casa Petrides is like a toy store for smokers.

Petrides says he enjoys the shop because “everybody knows everybody.” An intimate bar adjacent to the cigar store welcomes cigar smokers at a time when indoor smoking has become somewhat taboo, and in some places, illegal.

“People come to Casa Petrides to enjoy a cigar, and they know nobody’s going to make a face at you,” Petrides says.

Elvia Espiritu, who manages the cigar shop, says customers who shop there tend to be regulars.

One customer — Edgar Nichols — has been buying pipe tobacco from the store for 20 years, Espiritu says.

“It’s a good place to stop after work, cool off and have a beer,” Nichols says, pipe in hand. “I like the atmosphere. All the people here are friendly.”

Petrides says he’s drawn to cigars because he’s fascinated with the work that goes into making them, from cultivating the tobacco to hand rolling the finished product.

Making a good cigar, Petrides says, is an art.

“You enjoy the flavor. You don’t inhale,” he says of cigars.

“It’s a really relaxing atmosphere. It’s not like a cigarette (smoked) in stressful situations. A cigar … you sit with friends and enjoy.”

Ryan Holeywell covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446.