Campbell’s Smoke Shop is an East Lansing Classic
Walk into Campbell’s Smoke Shop at 207 M.A.C. Ave. and you’re transported back to 1970, the year the shop opened at the location it maintains today.
A large, wooden cigar store Indian greets all visitors, the old sign that a tobacconist was present in the establishment. All around, antique knick knacks, decades-old promotional items and jars of hand-mixed tobacco blends fill the space. Classical music plays lightly on the overhead speaker and the scent, surprisingly understated, reminds you of a beloved uncle and his pipe.
Terry DeMarco, 67, bought the business in 2015 when second-generation owner Doug Campbell wanted to retire. He realized it was for sale on one of his many trips to the store to buy cigars.
The classic smoke shop has been an East Lansing institution since 1956.
But the history of the shop goes back much farther than that.
“We’ve been here since 1956. You’ve really got to give the Campbell family the credit. Bill, the original owner, started it. He started as a tailor, that’s why you see that fur coat up there,” DeMarco said, pointing to a beautiful fur coat a customer would have died for when Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was president.
“It’s got a tag on it, Campbell’s Suburban Shop, I think it is,” he said. “They were down the street where the Jackson Zone is now. They moved here in ‘70, in this spot. Bill passed away in ‘80. His son worked for Savinelli, which was a pipe manufacturer. He was a rep for them. And then he quit that to take over this for the family. So then he ran it until 2015.”
Campbell retired to Houghton Lake but still visits regularly to purchase his own tobacco.
“Doug told me,” DeMarco said, “once it got to be acceptable to wear jeans with sport coats, you know, you could wear jeans anywhere, the tailoring business just went down. The next door neighbor had a little tobacco shop and he wanted to retire, so [Bill] bought the tobacco shop, sold it out back of the clothing store, and then when the clothing store started unwinding, he got full time into the tobacco business.”
Over its 67-year history, the shop has cultivated a loyal clientele that has spread throughout the country and world.
“A lot of our customers are older, my age or older,” DeMarco said. “They have a customer base that’s huge. We ship a lot. What happens is people come to school here, they come to work here, and they find something they like, our custom blends of tobacco, and then we ship it to them. Cigars you can get anywhere. These blends are blended here and we can ship it all over the world if they’d let us, but you can only ship it in the United States.”
With Michigan State right across the street, Campbell’s sees people from all over the world.
“One guy came in and he was working on the FRIB [Facility for Rare Isotope Beams], a French guy, he came over and got a bunch of stuff,” DeMarco said. “He loved it and when he went back [to France], he asked Josh, ‘how many can I take back? ‘ Josh found it out, and he said, OK, I’ll take that much.’”
Josh Woodbury is the manager of Campbell’s Smoke Shop after starting as an apprentice under Doug Campbell in 1996.
“Josh is what is known as a tobacconist,” DeMarco said. “There’s not a lot of those left in the state. There are people who work in tobacco stores, but they don’t know a lot about tobacco like he does.”
In some ways, Woodbury was a selling point for DeMarco.
“When we were in the middle of it, I said, Josh, I’m this close to buying this, if I do, would you stay if I bought it?” DeMarco said. “And he said, ‘If you bought it, I’d stay.’”
Tobacconist Josh Woodbury draws in customers with his custom blends.
“Trial and error,” Woodbury said when asked how he developed the skill. “After a while, you get a feel for it.”
Woodbury keeps his answers short and pithy, but gradually opens up during the interview.
“I was always interested in this,” he said, standing underneath tobacco leaves hanging from the wooden beams above. “Since the first time I discovered the store. I was a young man, I was a coffee boy at Caffe Venezia up the street and I was invited to work here.”
DeMarco is more willing to sing Woodbury’s praises.
“A lot of people come in just to see Josh and experience that,” he said. “They have questions. If someone is just starting out and tells him what they’ve liked, he can recommend something immediately. He did that with me and I smoked the same cigar for 15 years.”
When asked if Campbell’s would ever make an entrance into the world of cannabis, DeMarco is quick to respond.
“That’s not even a thought,” he said. “We don’t want to work that hard.”
“They’ve got glass products and bongs and vapors,” DeMarco continued. “They cater to a younger crowd. We’ve got the premium, hand-rolled tobacco, the custom blends, premium-rolled cigars, and pipes. You don’t really see a lot of pipe shops anymore. A lot of people say, ‘I really don’t see people smoking pipes anymore.’ Well, no one really walks down the street smoking a pipe like they used to, but there’s still a lot of folks who smoke. If your uncles are pipe smokers, they’d come in here and say, this is cool. None other like it in the state.”
One room of the business is dedicated to cigars.
DeMarco leads us into a glassed-off room that holds shelves upon shelves of cigars.
“I believe – maybe you can tell me,” he said, changing the subject, “that we’re the oldest business in East Lansing right now. Twichells [Dry Cleaning] was but they went out during COVID. That was a tough time.
“There weren’t a lot of agencies…government wasn’t giving money to tobacco shops. That’s pretty low on the priority list,” he said, laughing.
DeMarco said the hardest obstacle he’s seen since taking ownership of the business was the construction projects that have taken place west of the store. He half joked, saying wives have also been a problem.
“We’re not looking for any trouble,” he said. “We’ve got enough trouble with wives. Sometimes, you’ll run into a customer’s wife that doesn’t like smoking, ya know? And I’ll say, you’ve really got to come in and see. It’s not a bunch of guys sitting around and chain smoking cigarettes. Then they come in to buy a Christmas gift or something, and they say, ‘Wow, this is really neat.’”
“We’ve absolutely got women customers,” he added quickly. “We’ve got women pipe smokers, women cigar smokers, women who roll their own.”
DeMarco is in his element now as a customer comes in, meeting Woodbury at the cash register to pick up cigars he ordered. DeMarco lights up a cigar standing behind the glass display case.
“If you were here on a game day or Homecoming Day, you’d see guys come walking in, saying, ‘man, I used to come in here all the time.’ Back then, they sold single cigarettes,” he said. “When [college students] have something to celebrate, they’ll come in. Lot of dads will come in when they drop their kids off, and they’ll say, well, I’ll be visiting more often now.”
“It’s really about quality cigars, quality tobacco, and pretty outstanding service,” DeMarco said between puffs on his cigar. “That’s our model and it still draws people.”
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