Interview with the founder of the most beautiful lounge in the World for 2021. Anton Gaivoronsky John Calliano Lounge, Russia.

In 2021, Hookah Battle held a series of 18 events in 9 countries: local judges determined the best design of a hookah shop and a hookah lounge in their country. The finalists of local events (the best hookah lounge and shops in their country) got into the international Grand Prix, where 9 judges from 9 countries determined the winners around the World.

— The best hookah shop design in the World — Germany, Free Shisha Store (read the interview with the founder here)

— The best hookah lounge design in the World — Russia, John Calliano Lounge

How it went, you can briefly read in this article, and if you want a deep dive, then here is a 1.5 hour show on Youtube.

We interviewed the founder of John Calliano Lounge, Anton Gaivoronsky.

Hello Anton, I congratulate you on winning our international competition «The best hookah Lounge design in the World 2021».

I think it will be interesting for you to know that in a similar competition in the category of a hookah shop, the opinions of the judges were divided between a store from Russia (Best Shop Kazan) and Germany (Fre Shisha Store Dusseldorf). In the end, Germany won.

But there were no disputes about the lounges, Johncallianolounge was immediately among the favorites of the majority of judges

The closest competitors to you were:

2nd place in the World (1st in Ukraine)- Ukraine, Bearlogalounge

3rd place in the World (1st in Brazil) — Brazil, 667 street lounge

Can I ask you to watch videos from these two places from Ukraine and Brazil and give your personal assessment/comment on them?

Hello Stas! First of all, thank you very much from us and from the whole hookah community — you organized a virtual contest, which, I think, helped many participants around the world not to lose heart. When everyone has been quarantined for two years now and the establishments are closed, I admit that many are ready to give up their business and any activity and communication with colleagues from other countries not only supports them morally, but also helps them share experience and develop!

We are very happy that we won unanimously, but, to be honest, I hardly doubt it. To make our establishment, it was necessary to go through a long creative and business path in the hookah industry (I have been doing this for more than 10 years), which I doubt that there are such people in other countries. But it’s cool that, nevertheless, everyone is looking at Russia and trying to match and develop. The presented places from Brazil and Ukraine are clearly very high-quality places where people not just opened a business for the sake of earning, but it is clear that they did everything with their soul in their own style!

I know that you have been opening hookah bars and their franchise for a long time (HookahPlace is the largest franchise chain of hookah bars in the World), JohnCallianoLounge is very different from those projects that you did before. Tell me, how did you come up with the idea of opening a JC Lounge? How long ago was it and how did it all begin?

Yes, in 2012 I launched a video blog about JohnCallianohookahs, and in 2013 HookahPlace hookah chain. And for a long time the idea of a flagship author’s project, not a franchise, not a network one, was ripening. For almost 10 years, HookahPlace has firmly established itself as one of the most powerful hookah brands in the world, with its own philosophy and style. But not all ideas can scale and are good for the chain, so there has been an internal request for the implementation of a hookah bar in a different style for a long time.

The fact is that HookahPlace has set the fashion for hookah barsin the loft style as opposed to Arab restaurants of the 2010s (Approx. Medkova: Anton’s interview for Intertabak about Hookah Place was recently published (read more here).

And this fashion has become so strong that, on the contrary, we wanted to show that an place with an oriental interior can be stylish and fashionable, and that besides the loft there are many other styles, it is not necessary for everyone to copy HookahPlace. As a result, I have formed the concept of the author’s flagship of all my projects. The place with the name of the blog that started it all. JohnCalliano Lounge. The style was chosen cyber-punk, as it allowed us to play with Asian and Arabic motifs and our favorite neon!

What inspired you when creating the interior of the JC Lounge?
It’s hard to give a short answer. In fact, it is my life experience and what is well-watched. Trips to India, China, the Arab Emirates — small streets of Asia and large Arabic signs. Cinema, anime and, of course, video games. A lot of elements are inspired by the cyber-punk game Deus Ex and of course the movie Blade Runner.
Which design element was the most expensive/difficult to build?
Of course, this is the main hall with two large domes and a fountain, which are created in the style of a Moroccan courtyard. Now I can’t even imagine how we decided to do this. The domes were built right inside the premises and it was incredibly difficult to fix them evenly, as well as to assemble an outdoor active fountain right in the middle of the Arabic-style hall.
Well, as well as any owner of an establishment with an area of 350+meters (~1150ft) and with high ceilings understands that to make artistically beautiful walls for such an area and floor (we have a dozen different materials and techniques there) it’s very expensive.
However, the most expensive, we still have a hood. It costs more than $100,000 — heated and cooled, in a complex room on 3 floors of an old house, with noise reduction so as not to interfere with neighbors and with output to the roof — this is probably the most expensive ventilation in hookah bars in Russia.

How much have you invested in opening this establishment?

The total investments at the time of launch were in the region of 43,000,000 rubles (495 908 euros) and even more than 5,000,000 (57,663 euros) were spent during the year after the opening on improvements, completions, expansion of the number of furniture and new decor.

What brands of hookahs and tobacco do you use on the menu? How much does it cost to smoke a hookah on average?

We have a huge choice of tobacco — the status obliges. But we do not work with all newcomers to the market, we maintain a certain gold standard. There are a lot of tangiers flavors, a full range of darkside, daily hookah, smoke angels, matt pear flavors, many bonche and satyr cigar positions, key flavors of classic al fakher, nakhla, afzal and some important flavors from sebero, severny(северный), Sarma(сарма), and many more brands in constant stock — including chabacco and hype tea blends.

The price of a hookah is 1500 rubles (18 euros) on any tobacco.

What is the total square footage of the room? Are you in the center of Moscow? How much is the rent expensive? How many seats do you have? Do you think it is reasonable, from a business point of view, to sacrifice the useful area(where guests can be seated) by placing large decorative elements there (for example, the same grand piano). Among the typical hookah bars in the Russian Federation, there are very few who do this.

The footage is about 400 meters, the rent is a little more than a million($11.500/10.000euros). Sacrificing a landing for the sake of atmosphere and decor is always a yes! We are opening an author’s establishment, not a dining room in order to fill as many guests as possible! It is economically more important to work in the long run for regular guests, rather than strive for maximum fit at the moment. The experience of how we successfully survived 2 years of quarantine confirms this!

I know that you are going to scale the JC Lounge project to other cities in Russia. Will it be a franchise or something else? How will this happen?

Yes, very soon JC Lounge opens in St. Petersburg. This is not a franchise, with such a complex author’s project, we are not ready to build a franchise. We work in partnership, are part of the founders and are directly involved in the implementation of the project. Each JC Lounge will be unique and different from each other, but everyone will reveal the cyber-punk style in a new way. While we are ready to open in million-plus cities, after St. Petersburg we are talking about Kazan. There can only be one JC Lounge in each city.

Considering that you have received such international recognition, are you thinking about opening such placesoutside of Russia?
The question of a strong partner. We have extensive experience in building a franchise chain outside of Russia (HookahPlaceexist in more than 20 countries). Investments in the JC project are quite large, and given the unstable situation with covid in world markets, we would be ready to sign up for such a project in another country only with a very strong partner with experience in the catering / hookah industry who understands the value of the project and is ready to invest and play for a long time. To launch a project just for the sake of a tick, «to be» — we are not interested. We are sure that every JC Lounge should be an event in the city, even a city attraction, that all hookah lovers need to visit — how we managed to do it in Moscow, and how it will be done in St. Petersburg very soon!

Thank you, Anton, congratulations again on your victory. Let me remind you, according to the rules of the competition, the winner will not be able to participate in the design competition next year, but must act as a judge at the Grand Prix Shop & Lounge Design Award 2022, which we plan to hold at the Intertabak Expo in Germany on September 15-17, 2022. Let’s see which hookah lounges and shops will surprise us with their design in the new year.