Hookah lounge opens in Lodi

Mark Day puts hot coals on top of a hookah as he prepares it for a customer on Monday night. Alfalfa's Famous Pizza and Deli has opened up an outside hookah lounge. (Angelina Gervasi/News-Sentinel)

Hookah lounge opens in Lodi

Local pizza parlor offers flavored tobacco to patrons

By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 29, 2007 6:32 AM PDT

Comments (52 comment(s))

In the Lewis Carroll classic "Alice in Wonderland," the title character sees a caterpillar smoking from a hookah.

And if you didn't read about the hookah in "Alice in Wonderland," you probably heard Grace Slick immortalize it in her legendary 1967 song "White Rabbit."

Now you can smoke from a hookah at a pizza restaurant in Lodi.

A small outdoor hookah lounge featuring flavored tobacco is open each night at Alfalfa's Famous Pizza and Deli, just off Lockeford and Hutchins streets. The hookah lounge adjoining Alfalfa's opened on Aug. 17.

The inconspicuous pizza restaurant offers tobacco flavored with either apple or mixed berry flavoring mixed in molasses and glycerin, said Roger Bailey, Alfalfa's general manager.

Considering the lack of publicity, there was a good crowd over the weekend, said Daniel Crawford, an employee at Alfalfa's.

Although hookahs have a reputation as being drug paraphernalia, they are merely used for flavored tobacco, Crawford and Bailey said.

"You cannot smoke marijuana or anything else (that is illegal) in these pipes," Bailey said.

For $10, you can rent a hookah that stands more than two feet high. Typically, a party of four or five share the hookah for 30 to 60 minutes, depending how long the tobacco lasts, Bailey said.

Customers use a ceramic pipe with the flavored tobacco and covered with aluminum foil. They poke four holes into the aluminum foil and put hot coals on the top. Smoke from the tobacco filters through water at the bottom of the hookah and into a long tube, said David Cano, assistant to the owner. You then draw the flavored tobacco from the tube, he added.

Alfalfa's at a glance

Address: 429 W. Lockeford St., Lodi
Phone: 367-4444
Pizza hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., except Tuesday and Thursday, when it's open from noon to 9 p.m.
Hookah hours: 8 p.m. to 1 or 2 a.m., seven days a week. Closing hour will depend on how busy it is.
Source: Alfalfa's Famous Pizza and Deli.

Alfalfa's has two or three employees outside to check identification to make sure all customers are at least 18 years old, Crawford said.

Hookah lounges are the most popular among 18- to 21-year-olds, Bailey said.

"It's a way to congregate, get together with friends and stay out of trouble," he added.

When people turn 21, they're more likely to go to bars than hookah lounges, Bailey said.

Alfalfa's has been a pizza restaurant for 30 years, though its current owners, Muhammed Alhomaidi and Matthew White, have been running the establishment since January, Bailey said. Attempts to reach Alhomaidi last week were unsuccessful because he is out of the country, Bailey said. Alhomaidi is a Stockton Realtor and one of the owners of Morada Market.

Bailey said he hadn't heard of a hookah lounge before he became general manager in May, but the owners were talking about it at least since that time.

"Part of it is education," he said. "I had to get educated myself."

He learned about it by visiting two hookah lounges, one near California State University, Sacramento, and one in Stockton.

When the weather gets colder and wetter, Alfalfa's staff is looking at installing an overhead canopy and outdoor heaters, Bailey said. And they're thinking about installing a plasma TV so that customers can watch Monday Night Football — complete with a hookah in tow.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

Lodian wrote on Sep 11, 2007 10:36 AM:

" Adults: A new business is part of the community. We have every right to chime in with concerns, especially when there are huge red flags. Is it legal to share such devices/bongs in a business that invites the public to use these facilities/paraphernalia? How will these be cleaned/sterilized etc? "

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