Stogies Jazz club started at the corner of King Street and Cordova inside the historic building of the Casa Monica Hotel. Sadly, this historic location sat vacant from 1930s through the 1960s, until the city bought the building and used it for city hall offices. The building served as city hall for over three decades, until a developer bought it with plans to reconstruct and recreate the Casa Monica Hotel according to its original blueprints. Plans for the renovation of the Casa Monica Hotel weren't scheduled to start for one year, leaving this prime location vacant.  Jeff Holleran convinced the developer to rent him the space for that year so he could try out his concept of a "cigar bar" with live jazz music in a living room like atmosphere. In 1996, Holleran opened Stogies Jazz Club in the vacant property knowing he would have to relocate in one year but also knowing this was a very visible location on the main routes of all the sightseeing trains.Â
Stogie's first year was a great success and when it was time to relocate, Holleran found another vacant property that stood alone on Charlotte Street. This location allowed Holleran to utilize the whole building creating an atmosphere Churchill or Hemmingway would have frequented had they visited the Old City.
