Fifty-three years after he and his family left their tobacco plantation behind as they fled Cuba, Rene Barrios and his wife, Ivette, are about to double the size of their own cigar shop: Smitty’s Cigar and Tobacco.
The 20-year-old cigar store on Dawsonville Highway was purchased by the Barrios family in 2017, making it one of three businesses in Georgia and Florida owned by the entrepreneurial family. And with a year in business, Smitty’s is on the edge of a serious expansion in the Kohl’s-anchored McEver Corners on the highway.
Thursday, April 26, will be a sweet day for the Barrios family as it rolls out the news to friends and customers that it’s moving two doors down and doubling in size come July. It’ll be sweeter still because, like so many other Cuban refugees who found their way to the United States, they had to lose just about everything — and risk execution — in order to flee the Fidel Castro regime.
Smitty's up, but not in smoke
Cigar store plans major expansion with new location