The location at the corner of Lombard and N Richmond has been having trouble holding a tenant these last few years, sitting vacant since Blue Moon Coffee moved out last fall. Recently, St. Johns residents saw a new business take root. On April 30, the doors opened to Sultan Hookah Lounge and Smoke Shop, with a grand opening celebration that took place on May 8.

“About 300 people came through the night,” says co-owner Mike Makoul. “We had DJ music...the neighborhood has been very supportive.”

Makoul opened the Hookah Lounge with business partner Asem Samman because of the anti-smoking legislation that went into effect last year. Makoul has owned the Sultan Cafe on NW 18th for the past six years. In addition to being a restaurant, the cafe offered patrons hookah smoking. As of 2009, that was no longer permitted in establishments primarily serving food. Wanting to continue the Middle Eastern tradition of his youth, Makoul sought to find a new establishment to be built around hookahs.

“The law says that 75% of our business has to be tobacco related...we're trying to stay close to 90%.” Makoul explains that the smoking law permits businesses to be smoking lounges so long as that is their primary function. The Sultan Lounge does offer snacks and beverages, but these refreshments are ancillary to their main business of selling tobacco products and offering a lounge for hookah smoking.

Makoul, who is Palestinian, has lived in the states since he was nine. He also has family in Jordan.

“Over there, every home, every cafe and coffee shop has a hookah, it's just part of the society.”

Makoul says that hookah smoking has become very popular in the United States in recent years. The hookah itself is a tall water pipe. Damp, flavored tobacco is placed in a large bowl covered with a screen. Hot coals are placed on top, to heat the tobacco until it smolders. One or more hoses can be attached to the hookah so that participants may suck the sweet smoke through the pipe's water, which cools and humidifies it.

“It's more like steam than smoke,” says Randy Hill, who has already made several visits to the new lounge.

“If I could put a hookah in a backpack and smoke on it all day, I would,” says his friend and smoking partner Harold Stallworth. Although both men say that they smoke cigarettes, they allege that hookahs are much more pleasurable.

Although the Sultan sells cigarettes both at the counter and at the drive-through window, only hookah smoking is permitted inside.

“The smoke from other things is too harsh,” explains Makoul, who adds that cigarette smokers are welcome on the outdoor patio.

A hookah at the Lounge costs $10 for the first person, and $5 for each addition person in the party.  A packed hookah provides about an hour of smoking pleasure.

Sultan Lounge also sells hookahs, hookah tobacco, and a wide array of glass pipes and water pipes. Asked if people were concerned that these devices could be used for consumption of illegal drugs, Makoul points to a sign on the counter that reads, "All pipes sold here are intended for tobacco use only." 

“When they get it home, what they do with it is none of my business,” Makoul says. He did say that a few people have come to him with medical marijuana cards and asked if they could smoke their pot in his hookahs. “I told them we can't have that here. It's only for tobacco.”

Sultan Hookah Lounge

8221 N. Lombard

Hours m-th 3pm-1 am

F-S 3pm – 2:30 am