Put that in your pipe; Cedar hookah lounge/bar reopens in downtown Modesto after fire
After a fire closed it nearly two years ago, the Cedar hookah bar and lounge is once again smoking — but this time in the right way.
Cedar Bar & Lounge will celebrate its grand reopening Friday at its new H Street location. The Modesto nightspot has been shuttered since May 2018, when an early morning blaze badly damaged its Yosemite Boulevard building and the neighboring Beirut Falafel Hut restaurant. No one was injured, and the family that ran the business had hoped to reopen in the same location.
But 26-year-old owner Chrestina Abounaoum, whose family started the business in 2008, said they realized even if they rebuilt, the old 2,4000-square-foot space wouldn’t give them enough room to expand the way they wanted. So instead they began looking for new locations and settled on a portion of the former home of Townsend Opera Players (now Opera Modesto) on H Street.
The new downtown Modesto location, just off the corner of Sixth Street, has been fully renovated from the studs — which was pretty much what was left of the space when Abounaoum took over the lease. The result is a sleek, divided bar and lounge with one side for smoking hookahs and the other with a bar.
Abounaoum said she wanted to separate the two sides to give people options. The Hookah portion is open to those 18 and older and the bar is restricted to those over the age of 21. Both sides will share a DJ on the weekend and have dancing. The 6,000-square-foot space has a joint capacity for about 300.
“The reason for the separation is not everyone wants to be in a rowdy environment, so one side can be more energized and the other side more calm,” she said.
But, they still will be able to see each other. Two nearly ceiling-high glass picture windows allow those on the two sides to check each other out.
The new space features black decor with gold accents, inspired by the Art Deco-look of “The Great Gatsby.” Abounaoum’s father made the bar, couches and ornate wood TV frames himself, and family members are heavily involved in the project throughout. The family also owns Me’Mo’s Middle Eastern Cuisine restaurant on McHenry Avenue.
“This is a true family business, it’s me and my parents and two younger sisters,” Abounaoum said. “I was 13 when it opened and basically grew up (at the hookah lounge).”
She wants to foster that same everyone-is-family feel at the new site. They open with a staff of about 20, many who used to work at the old Yosemite site.
What is a hookah?
And, for Abounaoum, it’s the hookah that brings them all together. Long a part of Middle Eastern culture, a hookah is a water pipe used to vaporize tobacco. Often smoked in public settings with groups, it has also become trendy worldwide in more recent years.
“For us, hookah is a way to come together, it’s not about the tobacco” said Abounaoum, whose family emigrated to Modesto from Lebanon when she was 2 years old. “Hookah is a social thing, it’s not something you do by yourself. You sit, you talk, you laugh, you smoke.”
The bar and lounge’s name is a tribute to the Abounaoum family’s Lebanese background — a cedar tree is featured on the country’s flag. The original Yosemite Boulevard lounge started almost on accident, when in 2003 Abounaoum’s father set up a smoking tent outside Beirut Falafel Hut, which the family was also involved with at the time. That became so popular that they opened the next-door lounge about five years later.
The new location has some 100 hookahs to choose from, ranging from almost 3 feet tall to a custom-made Cedar-branded tabletop hookah. They also offer more than 50 flavors of loose-leaf tobacco to smoke, from fruity flavors like grape and peach to chocolate and cinnamon. There is even a tobacco that tastes like the vodka-based cocktail Sex on the Beach.
Hookah is smoked from a long hose extending out of the pipe. Cedar only uses single-hose hookahs, which Abounaoum said gives people a fuller, less diluted experience. For those germaphobes out there, if shared with multiple people each person gets their own disposable protective tips. The equipment is also cleaned between uses.
Customers pay by the tobacco bowl, which costs $15 and typically lasts around 45 minutes for three people to share. Refills are $6.
On the bar side, they will serve bottled and draft beer, wine and a number of house cocktails. A live DJ will spin Friday and Saturday nights, and beer pong tournaments will be held on Sundays.
Since being forced to close, Abounaoum said their fans have remained loyal — if a little impatient. She hopes to see them all back when the space reopens in its new site this week.
“It was crazy, all the time we’d have people asking about when we’d reopen. They even offered to do GoFundMes for us to help,” she said. “So we’re so excited to be back for them.”
Cedar Bar & Lounge, at 605 H St. in Modesto, celebrates its grand opening at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 17. Its regular hours will be 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday and 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday to Thursday. For more information call 209-505-3498 or visit www.facebook.com/Cedar.cali.
