Inside London's oldest cigar merchants'
Robert Fox, Managing Director of JJ Fox Cigar Merchants, London
We're the oldest cigar shop in London; the business was established by Robert Lewis in 1787. Our clients have included members of the Royal family and nobility, Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill - he bought an extraordinary amount of cigars. We have a museum in the shop with historical ledgers, cigars from the 1851 Great Exhibition, and our seven royal warrants. We also have Edward VIII's humidor, and the chair Churchill would sit in while choosing cigars.
Our family have been cigar merchants since 1881, when James J Fox opened his first store in Dublin. His son, Freddie, brought the business to London in 1947, opening a shop on Old Bond Street.
In the Eighties and Nineties we took over the cigar departments at Selfridges and Harrods, and in 1992 we purchased the Robert Lewis business in St James's Street, now our flagship store. In the main, our customers see cigars as something to be enjoyed as part of a special occasion, but catering to the collector's market is also a huge part of our business.
The conditions a cigar needs to maintain its quality over time are particular, so we hold stock for clients in our vaults, where the temperature and humidity are perfect.
We also have London's largest sampling room. The smoking ban doesn't apply there, so it allows clients to try cigars before deciding if they would like to purchase. We also use the space to host tastings and events.
Our client base has generally been male dominated, with some notable exceptions. Lady Randolph Churchill was our customer before her son Winston, and our last royal warrant was for the Queen Mother. Plenty of women come to our tastings: the exploration of flavours and pairings is as interesting to girls as it is to boys.
I'm the fifth generation of Fox to be involved, but I won't be the last. I go to the shop regularly; I used to think it was important for me to work on the shop floor until my staff told me to stop - they were fed up with me asking for help at the tills. Now I spend my time working in the sampling room with a cigar, though I usually end up just talking to customers. People will be very honest about what they think we're doing right and where we need to improve.
We place great emphasis on this kind of customer engagement; knowing our clients, greeting them by name when they walk in and remembering details about their lives. In today's retail world people are fed up with dealing with faceless brands; they want to deal with real people, and so they appreciate their relationship with us.
