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Tobacco Grove
Maple Grove, MN
Located just a touch outside of Minneapolis, Tobacco Grove is a Twin City staple that is beloved in the local community – and for good reason. We caught up with Tobacco Grove General Manager, Rick Baker and had the pleasure to travel to Maple Grove, Minnesota and take a tour of his lounge.
As a Crux Retail Partner, this premium cigar lounge and retail store has been around for over 20 years – and has been a long-time advocate of Crux since the beginning.
”I go way back with Crux Cigars.
Rick BakerGeneral Manager
Crux and Tobacco Grove Go Way Back
“We were fortunate enough to have some of the very first Crux Cigars ever rolled. It’s been fascinating and just a journey to watch [Crux] evolve and explode – I wouldn’t even say grow – explode!”
For an owner and operator of a brick-and-mortar shop like Rick is, moving inventory is the name of the game, but when the product does all the leg work for you, it’s a beautiful feeling.
“Crux Cigars are an extremely easy sell. Once people try them, they come back and are buying five packs; they’re buying boxes at a time,” mentions Rick.
Anytime you can be complementary to a retailers’ Rolodex of products and align with their needs is a win-win. When we define the quality, the price point and the palette we are going for, we have folks like Rick and his clientele in mind.
“We wanted to create a little bit of a feel of Old Havana.”
To say that Tobacco Grove is ‘comfortable’ wouldn’t even begin to do this place justice. But the secret sauce to a family feel environment didn’t happen overnight.
Rick and his team redid the entire store a few years ago to redesign the flow and really make its mark and impression on someone’s day. They expanded the seating for up to 70 people, propped up 8 large TV’s and built a massive 420 square foot walk-in humidor.
Armed with a brand-new, custom-made humidor that houses all of the top named brands, Rick was perfectly positioned to cater to the high-volume of traffic he saw every week. Not to mention the free Wifi, free coffee, and the insanely large selection of premium cigar accessories – if it’s unique, and it’s even remotely cigar related – you can best believe that Rick has it.
Crux and Tobacco Grove Go Way Back
It can be pretty overwhelming to walk into a humidor and not know what you’re looking for. And in today’s retail environment, education and personalized recommendations that are well-tailored to the customer can almost seem like a lost art. Not with Rick Baker and his team.
They truly want to have the best educated customer – and it starts with putting the time in when training their staff to be knowledgeable, helpful, up to date on current trends and products and taking pride in helping you find exactly what you’re looking for.
There’s a popular saying that “it’s all good at the Grove.” And now we can fully endorse that sentiment after seeing it first-hand!
