The Owl Shop

The ONLY place in CT where you could not only smoke indoors but also out on the front lounge...without anyone giving you a dirty look. The music is great, live or not. Tuesday and Wednesday nights they have great live music. The best selection of cigars and whiskey. Let alone amazing bloody mary's. A favorite on Sunday afternoon for me to go when I am not working. OH and they have the best coffee in New Haven, NO they have the best coffee I have ever had in the USA.

I really, really like this bar/cigar shop! It's near enough to the Yale campus to have college clientele as well as regular folks who like to have a smoke with their drink. There is bar seating, table seating as well as a small outdoor seating area. The air never gets smoky! the look is really one of a library. the walls and floor are wood and there are comfy chairs in which to sit and chat with friends.

American Spirit cigarettes and many types of cigars are available for purchase along with your drinks, of course.

The Owl Ship is hip as hell.  Smoke wafts through the air as well-dressed gentleman puff on cigars.  Jazz plays lightly in the background as elegant women sip their specialty coffee cocktails.

And the waitstaff are all slowly dying of lung cancer, but hey, nothing's perfect, right?

The Owl Shop is one of the most popular bars in New Haven, and for good reason.  For one, you can smoke inside, which is a bit of a rarity.  For two, the entire atmosphere kind of reeks of this sort of classical hip elegance.

Whether it's the leather sofas or the cigar cutters lying about, the bar kind of oozes cool.  And smoke.  Seriously.  There's smoke everywhere.

Sure, the cocktails are a little pricey and spending more than an hour there generally makes me feel ill from the pure amount of nicotine my body no longer craves in the air, but I'm not going to blame them for my sissy lungs.

Also, the bartenders are friendly and cool and on top of their shit, which I appreciate.  And they'll recommend a cigar in case you're some kind of plebian monster who doesn't know a good cigar from a Dutchmaster.

It's a nice place to stop for a drink or two and mingle and show off your ultrasleek fashion sense and enjoy a cigar or lounge on one of the couches if you're lucky enough to get a spot.  But it's not the kind of place I could stay all night.

I make enough bad decisions on a typical Friday night without adding "oops now I can't breathe" to the list.