Recently Shuttered Tchin Tchin Bar Is Reopening—This Time With Cigars

Photo: Courtesy of The Tchin Tchin Bar by The Royal Leaf

Tchin Tchin Bar, the Chinatown rooftop lounge that closed in May after 11 years, is coming back to life next month under new ownership. Ricardo Smith, owner of The Royal Leaf cigar lounge two doors down on Hotel Street, bought the bar recently and plans to refresh with it a focus on premium whiskey, wine and cigars.

Smith, who’s out of the country this week, “found out about Tchin Tchin, and he was really saddened by it. We were like, we gotta get that space and continue the vitality and bring the life back to Hotel Street,” says Cevi Rocha-Cevidanes, operating manager of the new Tchin Tchin Bar by The Royal Leaf and general manager of the cigar lounge. “Bar 35 is doing well, and NextDoor is picking up. But Tchin Tchin provided a space for a more mature clientele, and we wanted to keep that going as well.”

Ricardo Smith, pictured here at The Royal Leaf, is bringing cigar culture to Tchin Tchin Bar. Photo: Cevi Rocha-Cevidanes

Smith was an owner of Red Bar on Nu‘uanu Avenue and opened Royal Leaf a year ago on Sept. 4, the new Tchin Tchin Bar’s targeted reopening date. The cigar aficionado plans a cigar section on the rooftop where people can bring their own cigars or buy one; there will be no cut fee, Rocha-Cevidanes says. A former bar manager at San Paolo Pizzeria in Waikīkī, it was Rocha-Cevidanes who curated well selections, including Traveller Whiskey, Uncle Val’s Gins and Myers’s Rum, and created new house cocktails and mocktails. Each will come with a suggested cigar pairing.

Photo: Courtesy of The Tchin Tchin Bar by The Royal Leaf

Food? A small menu of bar bites is coming from Livestock Tavern’s Jesse Cruz, who founded Tchin Tchin Bar with then-partner Dusty Grable back in 2015. In quick succession before that, the duo brought Lucky Belly and Livestock Tavern to a neighborhood known for its edgy, emerging bars and art venues but not for culinary destinations. The Pig & The Lady, Grondin, Encore Saloon, Fête and other restaurants followed, and in today’s maturing Chinatown scene, Smith—who bought Tchin Tchin from Cruz’s Breaking Bread Hospitality Group—is part of a new generation behind a spate of recent openings.

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At the top of the stairs marking Tchin Tchin Bar’s entrance on Hotel Street, the interior bar space will keep its industrial look, Rocha-Cevidanes says, though with a new “distillery feel.” There will be live music. The rooftop space will have more seating, refurbished couches and overhead, as from the very beginning, those strings of lights marking the boundary of night.

39 N. Hotel St., Chinatown, thetchintchinbar.com, @thetchintchinbar

Mari Taketa is editor of Frolic Hawai‘i and dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine.