Edward’s Sets a High Standard By Which All Others Will be Judged!

Edward’s Pipe & Tobacco Shop
3439 S Broadway
Englewood, CO 80113

This jewel of a cigar shop is tough to find, but will reward you once you do.

This establishment has dedicated about 2/3rds of it’s floorspace to pipe tobacco but the final 1/3rd, dedicated to cigars and completely blows away every cigar store I’ve ever seen. Ever.

Be aware that, once you find this place (I recommend Google Maps) there is plenty of free parking in the back. Enter through the back and walk past the smoking area with the TV into the store. Once you reach the store, your first impression will be something like, “Holy crap, this is the nicest pipe-tobacco store I’ve ever seen!”, and it is. But once you find your way to the front counter you’ll see the little door to their humidor tucked away off to the left, beside the counter.

The humidor is smallish. About the size of a large apartment kitchen. However, this humidor is completely chuck-full of product. From floor to ceiling all the way around, and an island in the middle, are open boxes of cigars crammed side-to-side with not a square inch to spare. There are even cheapies on the floor and cigar bundles, out of reach, on the top shelves. I’ve never seen such a selection, anywhere, let alone in such a small walk-in humidor!

They have everything, for everyone, at every price. Some notable mentions are: the biggest selection of Punch cigars I’ve ever seen even at online stores. They have the complete Davidoff selection. They have a ton of Macanudos. Probably all the La Glorias. Probably all the A. Fuentes. A bunch of the more interesting Rocky Patels and CAOs. They have quite a selection of bundle cigars including La Unica cigars. (Singles of the #400s, by the way, were the proper $4.50 each.)

Pricing? The prices are a little more than what you can get them for on the internet. I figure that’s fair, considering their overhead. At the posted prices I, honestly, found it hard to choose and to stop picking up cigars once my hands were nearly full.

Best of all, I was in the humidor for about fifteen minutes of browsing and choosing before I walked out and left my buddy in there who took an additional ten minutes. Neither of us were bothered or questioned or given the evil eye by anyone; not even once. That’s a combined 40 minutes of blissful cigar-browsing freedom! Sure, they have security cameras in there that they keep an eye on from the cash register; understandably enough, but, outside of that, they entirely leave people alone to browse in peace.

I really can’t say enough good things about the time we spent in this amazing humidor.

I carried out two big hand fulls of cigars I wanted to try, as well as some favorites I bought at prices that made me happy. Unfortunately, while the boxes have the prices on them for individual cigars, the individual cigars don’t. When it came time to check out, the owner seemed irritated to have to go back into the humidor and write down all the prices for what I got. This surprised me and I began to wonder if this was like the screw & bolt section of the hardware store where you’re supposed to write something down to bring to the register, but I saw no sign or instructions posted about anything like that. It’s a little inconvenient and uncomfortable that the person behind the counter has to go back in and find out the prices of what you bought, which can be time-consuming if you grabbed a lot. (The employees do a good job of concealing their discontent at having to perform that task and don’t seem irritated at the customers.) When he emerged and rang me up, I was nearly giddy at the sub $40 total for what I got.

If I had to tell a strange story about this experience it would be this: Their cash register counter is sort of like a bar where retired men sit and smoke and shoot the bull (chit-chat). I noticed one old white guy was wearing a hat that said, “Gun...” (something), and I couldn’t read the rest. He had been deep in conversation with the owner ever since I first walked in. When I came out of the humidor, a business-professionally dressed African-American man walked in and, on his way into the humidor, asked the man what his hat said. The guy turned, you could now read his hat, and he said, “Piss on Gun Control!”. There was an awkward moment and it was apparent that these two men had nothing in common; that they, in fact, were from opposite ends of the political spectrum. The owner just stood behind the counter, straight-faced; he was staying out of it. The African-American man laughed it off and entered the humidor. I hung around, browsing, but really just loitering while I waited to see how this panned out. When the African-American man emerged with a handful of cigars, the owner rang him up and treated him as graciously as he treated me. As someone who frequents gun dealers, I know how owners can let their politics affect how they treat customers who don’t seem to fit their ideology. This was not the case. Apparently, everyone is welcome at Edward’s.

It’s a good thing. I’ll be going back often and bring all sorts of friends.

[Update]

I’ve been to Edwards many times since my first experience. It seems I never tire of their awesome selection at fair prices. I always maintain a “want to try” list. Edwards has been the perfect place to grab as many things on that list as I can find. I usually have pretty good luck finding things on that list but not always. As the owner said when my buddy inquired about Don Pepin Blue, “It’s not that we WON’T carry it; we just don’t have the room!” I guess, when you carry such complete lines of so many brands, you have to sacrifice somewhere.

Edwards also has an excellent selection of accessories, including old-fashioned things you rarely see anywhere. I won’t detail what those are because, after all, I’ve got my eye on a few of those myself.

Edwards is head-and-shoulders above any cigar shop I’ve ever seen anywhere. If they had the man-power to put prices on each of their cigars they would belong in cigar history books. Since that’s their only flaw and since they were more than happy to give my buddy two cigar magazines with his $30 purchase - along with their selection, prices and hospitality, I have to give them a 10 out of 10 in my book. They’re the best I’ve seen.