Pleasure seekers descending on New Orleans all know before they arrive that a visit to the French Quarter is an indispensable excursion. The bustling, historic 6×14-block neighborhood—one of the oldest residential communities in the United States—is home to more than 40 restaurants, 60 bars, almost 200 hotel establishments, and some 4,000 permanent residents who welcome 15 million visitors annually. While there’s plenty in the French Quarter to keep revelers busy, anyone attending PCA’s trade show might be interested to hear that in all of that famous, boisterous district there exists only one smoking bar where patrons can drink and smoke under the same roof, and enjoy handy access to food: Cuban Creations, at 533 Toulouse Street.
That distinction is made workable by an unlikely confluence of traditions, good luck, and legal exemptions equally as quirky as the city itself. Cuban Creations owner Andrew Wilson, when asked if there was any emerging French Quarter competition for his lounge’s singular standing, replies, frankly, no. “There are other cigar lounges in New Orleans,” he allows. “But with the politics in New Orleans, it is very hard for anyone to get alcohol and smoking permitted in the same establishment, especially with food close at hand.”
Cuban Creations owes its distinctive place in the Vieux Carré to a grandfathering clause in the New Orleans smoking ban law, which features a carve-out for certain smoking enterprises. The exemption does not attach to any business or any individual, but rather to the address itself. The dispensation was attached to 533 Toulouse for years before Wilson came along in 2018 and assumed the lease and launched the Cuban Creations brand.
A uniquely convenient feature of the property is that Wilson also owns an express barbecue place right next door, at 537 Toulouse—a place called Pig Out NOLA, which offers highly regarded menu items including pork and brisket, tacos, and even duck & andouille sausage gumbo. So Cuban Creations patrons have Pig Out NOLA at the ready, all the more so given the bar’s canopied seating area on the sidewalk out front, which means Wilson can run the eatery as a stand-alone business, freeing him of any need to run a kitchen in the cigar lounge. It’s too perfect.
The business formula Wilson has been able to concoct at this opportune location attracts throngs of tourists and a dependable cadre of local regulars who keep the place buzzing seven days a week. He describes his Cuban Creations clientele as “all over the board,” adding, “They are doctors, lawyers, your average Joe, tourists, government workers. The majority of our foot traffic consists of tourists, but we get a lot of locals as well, people who work in the city.”
One Cuban Creations regular, Winston Reid, calls the lounge “a place where lifelong friends are made.” He says, “You come in as a customer or patron, but when you leave, you are considered family. I have visited many cigar spots domestically and abroad, but Cuban Creations is the only one that always gives me a satisfying experience, where I can meet positive new people from all walks of life.” Another regular customer, Howard Glaser, a New Orleans cigar history enthusiast, says, “What makes Cuban Creations special is the same thing that makes New Orleans tick: the mix of history, architecture, music and the pleasure of camaraderie over a drink and a cigar with friends old and new. You’ll find oil workers and mechanics rubbing elbows with judges, developers and tourists, with a regular dose of musicians, celebrities and sports figures. It’s a place where everybody not only knows your name, but your cigar preference, and they are likely to buy you one before you have a chance to buy your own.”
Wilson, 47, who hails from Coventry, England, has been living in the States for 31 years, much of that time spent in charge of customer development for MGM Resorts, Seminol and Winn Resorts in Las Vegas. This experience gave him a deep grounding in the ways of pleasing a boisterous crowd. And he knew that a top-flight cigar lounge occupying such a primo square of real estate would have to stock top-shelf cigars. The humidor at Cuban Creations, like most aspects of the business, had to be fitted to the space afforded by its somewhat eccentric, historic venue.
It is a business spot not necessarily suited to any conventional, turn-key, cut-and-paste design. Wilson says his humidor amounts to less than 300 square feet (although its inventory speaks for itself). “A friend of mine, an HVAC contractor named Steve Bozant, who is a really good woodworker with a passion for cigars—he and I built the humidor out of Spanish cedar in a couple months’ time,” says Wilson. About 50 boxes of cigars per month move through that humidor, he says. Top-selling brands at Cuban Creations include Padrón, Arturo Fuente, My Father, and Atabey, reflecting the upscale taste of the clientele.
Head bartender Matthew Retoske has been with Cuban Creations for nearly four years. Wilson calls Retoske “a big part of our success,” and Retoske takes obvious pride in the level of service that he and the Cuban Creations staff are able to extend. “We offer a wide range of spirits at different price points, in addition to one of the more extensive whiskey selections in the city,” he points out. “It can depend on the day of the week or events that are in town, but we make all kinds of drinks from scratch frozen daiquiris to margaritas to martinis to classic New Orleans cocktails.”
“We’re all cigar people here,” says Wilson. “The specialness of where we are and what we’re able to do here stands out. I’ve lived and worked in a lot of different places, but the uniqueness and alure of the French Quarter is so synonymous with cigars, it’s interesting that there isn’t more of an association of this town with cigars. I used to live in Tampa and I talked with historians there about cigars, and the trade route was New Orleans-Tampa-Cuba. It’s kind of a lost piece of history, but cigar people really helped nurture and protect the growth of the French Quarter.” All of which makes it fitting that Cuban Creations has found a way to anchor good times and sophisticated appetites to the enduring New Orleans cigar tradition.
Cuban Creations is open every day 11 to 2 a.m. Visit cigarbarnola.com or phone 504-372-4838.
– Photography by Mikey Ricks. Story by William C. Nelson.
This story first appeared in PCA The Magazine, Vol. 1, 2025. To receive a copy of this magazine you must be a current member of PCA. Join or renew today at premiumcigars.org/membership.