Friday, March 29, 2024

Chelan Vape, Smoke & Cigar celebrates first anniversary

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CHELAN – This month, the Garcia  family is celebrating one year of operating their business, Chelan Vape, Smoke & Cigar.

After working for Nintendo for 25 years, Rob and Naheida Garcia were looking forward to  retirement. Rob and Naheida sold their house in Lynnwood, Wash. with the help of their son, Raheel Qureshi who currently works in real estate.  Soon after, they moved to Chelan to start a new life. After living here for a while, the Garcias thought of the idea of opening up their own family business.  

“We came here and this store was a smoke shop before, but it was never open. I talked to the owner and the landlord and basically we bought the business,” claimed Raheel.

After renovations and adding new inventory, the Chelan Vape, Smoke & Cigar was born.

The Chelan Vape is the only business of its kind in the area, “a lot of local people are really happy, now they don’t have to go to Wenatchee,” said Rob.

The most popular item sold at the store is the Juul, an electronic smoking device. In-store people can find over 30 flavors of e-juice to choose from. A variety of goods are also sold, however Chelan Vape focusses more on vape products, glass products and also cigars.

During the summer time, sales start picking up, “on average we see 25 to 30 customers a day” including local people and tourists. Once winter hits local people are mostly the ones purchasing goods from Chelan Vape, “we give them special discounts … we know that a lot of people aren’t working.”

The Garcias want people who shop at their store to be happy. According to Raheel, “once a lady thought our price was a little bit high, she still bought it, she didn’t complain and then she wrote a review … I contacted her and gave her a $10 credit for next time she came in. We always try to work with people, we are not trying to screw people over.”  If Chelan Vape doesn’t have the product people go in asking for, they take note of that and they will get the product.

“Our five year goal is to purchase this lot and construct a building where half of it is a smoke shop and  the other half will be something else. It might be real estate or we might do something in food since we have a background in food. At the top will be a two bedroom apartment, that’s a goal for us,” said Raheel.

The Chelan Vape, Smoke & Cigar is located 320 E. Woodin Avenue. They are open Monday – Thursday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. During summer they will also be open on Sunday from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. For inquiries call (509) 888-0136, follow them on Instagram @WeVapeChelan and on Facebook.com/WeVapeChelan.
 

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