One Man’s Dream

 Atul Solanki came to America and was taking classes at USF with a dream of becoming an engineer when he saw an opportunity to purchase what at the time was a drive-thru beverage store. When the building that housed it became available, he purchased it and slowly expanded the business. In 2003 he took an interest in the cigar community and opened Cigar Castle in the space that is currently our seating area and a few cabinet humidors. In 2006 he expanded out to what was the largest self-contained walk-in humidor in the South-East. With the expansion of the humidor his carefully curated selection of cigars expanded to over 1,200 open boxes. He soon became a mecca for boutique, rare and hard to find cigars.

The natural evolution to a classic cigar lounge atmosphere was to begin offering libations to pair with your cigars. In 2010 he opened Pivo Lounge with the largest draft wall in the cigar community – 50 carefully selected lines of almost exclusively import, local or small craft breweries; along with over 200 bottles of open liquor, it soon became a destination for cigar smokers across the country and world.

With the launch of the website in mind construction began in 2024 to seal off a portion of our lounge and expand the humidor to offer even more boutique brands. We now carry over 8,000 unique products and are offering access to one of the widest varieties of cigars in Tampa to the rest of the country.

Through the past 23 years one thing has remained constant – Atul Solanki and the classic cigar lounge atmosphere he maintains. If you’re ever in Tampa swing by and say hey to Atul and the staff!