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Blue Myst Hookah Bar packs a different flavor
A new hookah bar in Fairfax is trying to smoke out the competition with better service, clean pipes and neon lights.
The Ariana Kabob House opened six months ago and still doesn't have a liquor license. For months the bar was an unused, dark corner of the restaurant.
The Kabob House owners didn't want liquor in their Afghani eatery, but "with business a little slow, we thought that now we should get a license, but these things take time," manager Nilo Sharef said.
Then came Ali Waqqas and his two partners.
The trio, who are young professionals with well-paying full-time jobs, recently launched Woodbridge-based Hookah Consultants, scoping out potential restaurants and bars in the region that could profit by using the consultants' hands-on service, accompanied by pipes, coals and flavored tobacco.
The Ariana Kabob House is an ideal location for a hookah bar. It's three miles away from George Mason University and, without alcohol, the bar area is reserved for hookahs and camaraderie.
A deal was struck and the Blue Myst Hookah Bar opened last month.
The menu is standard, with favorites like double apple and white grape listed with others like mint and fuzzy navel.
Some say, however, that smoking from a hookah is not a healthy alternative to cigarettes and can be worse.
"Our stance on that is that excessive anything is bad. We encourage smart smoking, so if you smoke all day long, obviously it's going to be bad for you," Waqqas said. "The difference between sheesha and cigarettes is that sheesha has 0.05 percent nicotine in it and no tar. Also, people who come here for this don't necessarily smoke cigarettes. I don't smoke cigarettes, and neither do my partners. We do this as a social activity."
The first thing that may strike a hookah enthusiast is the cleanliness of the whole operation. Pipes are meticulously cleaned, disposable plastic mouthpieces are given to patrons, and equipment and tools are left behind the bar.
The sheesha is bought from wholesale dealers "who provide only the best on the market," Waqqas said.
"Every week we have more and more people coming and complaining about other places that aren't clean, that have bad service and that the sheesha isn't as fresh," Waqqas said.
The partners are in talks with the restaurant owners to expand the hookah operation to six or seven days a week.
"The potential we see here, we don't see anywhere else," Waqqas said, adding, "Hookah brings people together, gives them an activity to do. I mean, it brought me and my partners together."
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