Jeff Beal turned his hobby into a business on April 1, 2017, when he and his team of cigar lovers opened The Cigar Vault in downtown Buda. “We [Beal and General Manager Brian Foley] both knew cigars and how to smoke cigars, but who do we get them from? Why are we getting it from them? Is the pricing good? Who can we trust?” Beal said. “Neither one of us really had any experience in this [cigar] industry, so building relationships with people who knew what they were doing was important.”
Foley said what makes The Cigar Vault stand out from other cigar lounges is the staff treats customers like family. There are no membership fees, and they want every type of person to experience the lounge. “It has always been kind of taboo for people to go into a cigar shop if they don’t know what they are doing. They feel intimidated. We didn’t want that,” Foley said. “You don’t need to know about cigars; it doesn’t matter. We’re still learning, and we want you to be comfortable. We genuinely care about you, not that you are here to buy cigars, but you as a person in this community because [we’re] family.”
The building housing the original Cigar Vault in Buda was once home to the town’s bank. The vault still in the back now doubles as a cigar humidor. The shelves that now hold cigars were once safety deposit boxes. The Cigar Vault has grown with stores in East Austin, San Marcos, and Bee Cave.