We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Strother a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chris, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
I suppose that all depends on how you define the word success. For a very long time we have lived in a world where success has been determined by how much money you have in your account, how big your house is, what kind of car you drive etc…But I believe the world is changing as well as how people view what success is. After all, there’s a lot of people in this world with lots of money, big houses and fancy cars, but their lives are a wreck, they’re depressed, and they’re lonely. That’s not success.
Concretely I deal in cigars. Abstraclty I deal in entertainment as well as moments of celebration. When someone wants me to bring the cigar bar out to their wedding to add that extra touch of class and celebration to their special day, and years down the road they’re looking through their photo album and see themselves celebrating with a cigar; that to me is success. I was able to bring that extra, little special piece of the puzzle to their wedding day, and they’ll always fondly remember that. My wife is a midwife, and recently one of the husband’s of one of her clients reached out to me to get a few cigars to smoke to celebrate the birth of their newest child. He bought three cigars: one for himself, and one for each grandpa that was coming over that evening to rejoice in their new family member. I will forever have a small part in that joyful moment for that family. Those cigars and those smiling faces are indelibly etched in photos to mark that occassion. That’s awsome. That, to me, is success. Is there a financial undercurrent that I’m shooting for? Sure. That’s just part of life. But success is so much more than dollar bills. This life can be hard, but if I can have a small part of making happy memories happier – I’m content with that. I’ve been successful.
Chris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My relationship with tobacco started back in the fall of 1998 as a college student in Texas. My college buddies and I happened upon a snazzy humidor in downtown San Marcos. At the time I was mostly buying their flavored chewing tobacco: vanilla, cherry or apple. It was fantastic. Eventually we bought pipes from that shop and began smoking together on the weekends or after classes for the day had concluded. We loved the muse it brought, the contemplativeness, and the conversation. Pipes and cigars just have a way of creating that philosophical environment. A year later, in December of 1999, I became a Christian. I was taught that consumables such as alcohol and tobacco were wrong, and as a result of that I quit drinking alcohol and chewing tobacco as well as smoking my pipe. It was not a difficult thing for me to do, but I found I did indeed miss the enjoyment that tobacco had brought me.
Not long after becoming a Christian I chose to spend my life as a pastor, teaching people what the word of God has to say. I graduated with a bachelor’s of religious education from a small, local church Bible college in Southern California in 2004, and I spent the 12 years from 2007-2019 pastoring a small church. I loved those years. I still love those years. There’s a lot of my identity wrapped up in that time that I will never leave behind, but every now and then during those 12 years the thought of smoking cigars and my pipe would flutter in and out of my mind. Fast forward to the spring of 2018 and I decided I was going to do a deep dive in the Bible to see what the Scriptures had to say for themselves about consumables. From the day I became a Christian and all through my formal college education I was taught, among many things, about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco. I just got to the point where I didn’t want to rely on what I had been spoon fed. I needed to settle things in my heart and mind for myself. I needed and wanted to be a critical thinker. Many of the things I had been taught I still believe to this day, but upon Biblical examination I came to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with the consumption of alcohol and tobacco as long as it is in moderation; that I am to be in control of my appetites and not the other way around. With this in mind I began, in the fall of 2018, to smoke a pipe again, and it wasn’t long until I began adding cigars to my smoking experiences.
In the spring of 2019 I decided it was time for my family to make a move. So in June of that year we packed up our home in Southern California, and we made the trek to the Upstate of South Carolina. Little did I know, things were about to get rough. 2020 was difficult for the everyone due to Covid, but by the time 2020 had ended I found myself divorced, a speeding ticket, 2 collisions, a financially disastrous attempt at life insurance, and right at Thanksgiving I finally landed a job working in a custom butcher shop in Greenville. It wasn’t much pay wise, but I was grateful for steady income. It also gave me space to breathe, something to focus on, and allowed me the chance to ponder my future.
Jump to the fall of 2021. I had remarried to Jennifer Stewart, a woman who loves and supports me in ways that I certainly don’t feel worthy of. My life had settled, I was still in the butcher shop, and I had been thinking hard about how I could make a little extra money on the side. I love cigars and pipes. I enjoy everything about them. I knew competition was fierce, but I thought maybe I could start a small online cigar subscription company. Stay local. It would make a little extra cash and not take up too much time. In passing I mentioned it to my wife. She said if it made me happy I should go for it. But she’s not the only person I mentioned it to. While working at the butcher shop I had met a man named Jason Janson. He had recently launched his own seafood business, Broadwater Shrimp Supply Co. He’s a fellow cigar smoker (and is now my best friend), and I was very excited about the prospect of my own cigar business. I shared my idea with him, and a few days later he texted me and said, “Ok, I got it. Mobile cigar lounge.” That was Wednesday, November 10, 2021.
From that Wednesday in early November a mobile cigar lounge has been my vision, my dream. My wife, an entreprenuer herself, really challenged me to scale back my vision so I could get started sooner. Keep the dream in focus, but start smaller so I can actually launch. So that’s what I decided to do. January 24, 2022 I filed papers with the State of South Carolina to create a LLC. My website went live May 30. Jason hosted me at his house with a group of friends and we had a launch party for The Cigar Box June 12. My first event was at a winery on Father’s Day weekend.
It has been a whirlwind of a last 6 months setting up my mobile cigar bar at golf tournaments, wineries, breweries, axe throwing places, and private parties. I tell everyone I can about what I do because I’m passionate about it, because it’s fun, and because it can bring an extra layer of excitement to their next party. I want to be there. But I make sure to tell them that it doesn’t have to be a big event for me to supply them with cigars. I’m happy to curate a small selection for the guy who is having 5 friends over for a poker night. That being said, I’m not just a guy who is there to provide cigars for a gathering. I’m also there to educate because there’s a lot of people who walk up to the bar and need direction. They want to know about flavor profiles, shapes, what’s mild, should they try a darker cigar, how should this be cut and lit? I help people make confident choices about which cigar they’re about to fire up and enjoy for the first time, or maybe for the first time in a long time. I ask them about their taste preferences. Do they like it spicy or mild? I explain the difference between bold flavors and a strong cigar, because those are not the same. Do they like milk chocolate, do they prefer dark, or maybe they’re more into peanut butter? Then I go from there. I do everything I can to help them enjoy the experience.
I have no idea where this business is going to take me, but I’m excited for the ride. I’m open to doing things that aren’t a party where a cigar bar is needed. I have a bourbon and cigar pairing event on the horizon that I’ve been asked to come to. I’m supplying the cigars, and I’m going to have a few minutes to educate the crowd about what they’re tasting in the cigar as they smoke and sip the bourbon. I recently spoke with a man about doing a cigar tasting on a zoom call for his law firm’s clients. We’ll see if that happens. Fingers crossed. This coming spring I’m teaching a 4 week cigar class at Furman University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The class is titled From Seed to Smoke: The Journey of a Cigar. In four weeks we’ll cover growing tobacco, harvesting, drying, fermenting, rolling, storing, cutting, smoking and tasting. I am over the moon with excitement for this course. This past Christmas I started putting together cigar gift boxes. It’s the perfect gift for the cigar smoker in your life. There’s a selection of cigars, chocolate truffles, honeys, and other things that pair nicely with cigars, maybe a single use cocktail mixer, and some masculine products such as a properly fragranced candle, and some beard wash or beard oil. They’re customizable. Those did well for the holidays, and they’re great for Father’s Day, birthdays etc…I’m expanding my business by working at getting into other businesses where the clientele is right for cigars. I have two humidors in two high end barbershops, I’m looking for more, there’s a local golf shop I hope to start supplying soon, and there’s also a local fly fishing shop that I’m having a conversation with about offering their customers cigars. While I’m focused on my cigar bar and eventually making the mobile cigar lounge a reality, I’ve got a lot going on behind the scenes to help educate people about cigars and offering cigars in places you wouldn’t normally think of. I think the sky is the limit.
I love what I do, and I guess I just want people to know that I only seek to elevate their next party, corportante event or what have you. I want people to walk away saying, “That was awesome, and having The Cigar Box there just put it over the top.”
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I’ve never started a business. I’ve never owned a business. I’ve never run a business. So when I launched The Cigar Box I was very excited, but I was also extremely hopeful in the things people would say to me at events. Inevitably someone would come by the bar, chat with me a few minutes and tell me, “My boss is a huge cigar smoker. I love your set up and what you’re doing. We have a couple of company events every year, and I know he’d love to have you out.” They’d take a few business cards, I’d get excited, and when I got home I’d share that excitement with my wife and others. But that phone call from their boss never came. I could tell a whole host of similar stories. I’m sure all of those people were genuine and would have loved to have me, but if they’re not the boss it’s not their call. So it didn’t take me too terribly long to stop getting excited about those kinds of conversations. Those phone calls rarely come. It wasn’t so much that I had to unlearn hopefulness, but rather that I had to learn when and where I could actually be hopeful.
I’ve found in the world of starting a business that the conversations I can be hopeful about are the ones that I inititate. Business comes to me the vast majority of the time because I made a phone call, I wrote an email, I sent a DM on Instagram, or I showed up at a person’s place of business and had a face to face conversation. A really wise man once said, “In all labor there is profit.” That quote often lives in my head. If there’s profit in all labor, the question really becomes, “How much labor am I putting in?” I had to reign in my excitement about things people told me at events and learn to be more hopeful about the work I put in yielding results.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I believe one of the keys to creating a sustainable business, as well as being content in life, is being flexible; being able to allow your vision of what you want to morph with what life brings your way. Sometimes things will happen to you or opportunities will be presented to you that you have no control over, and in that moment you have a choice to make about where you want your business or personal life to go. Then there are times when choices you have made in the past wind up having a great effect on your current life and you have to change. It’s the law of sowing and reaping, right?
The biggest pivot in my life was moving away from being a pastor into being something else. Going through my divorce, coupled with a great loss of time with my 4 kids was the most painful change I’ve ever been through. Not only had my home life drastically changed; my professional life was changing too. I loved being a pastor, I loved teaching the Bible, and I loved going to church (I still go to church). When the divorce came I knew in my heart and gut that I would never be a pastor again. I fought that feeling and reality tooth and nail. I grieved the loss of my family with many tears. I mourned the loss of my passion, which is to share the word of God. It was a really difficult time in my life.
Eventaully I learned to accept the reality of the situation and had to find something else that I was passionate about to put myself into. I have thought many times about getting into public speaking, though I wouldn’t even know where to begin, honestly. There’s much more to preaching the Bible than being a proficient public speaker, but I had considerably honed my public speaking prowess after 12 years of delivering 3 sermons a week. I’m still open to that if the opportunity arose. Do you know someone who needs a guest speaker for an event? But when the idea to start a cigar business came to mind, and that idea was focused into a mobile business, the search was over. I was combining something I very much enjoyed with the opportunity to share that passion with others, all the while elevating their entertaining moments. I tried to get into life insurance, I worked in a butcher shop, and I currently have my realtor’s license. But those were all strictly about making a living. Those things don’t define me. While cigars don’t wholly define me either, I’ve pivoted into being a cigar man. It takes time to find your groove again when you have to pivot, but at some point you’ll have to. Be flexible. I’m content and happy again.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mobilecigarbox.com
- Instagram: @mobilecigarbox
- Other: I’m not very active on Facebook. I have my Instagram account linked to Facebook, so everything I post on Instagram winds up on Facebook.