Some cigar shops sell cigars. L.J. Peretti Co. sells history — and also cigars, but mostly history. Established in 1870, when the United States had 37 states and Ulysses S. Grant was one year into his first presidential term, Peretti’s is one of the oldest cigar shops in America. And it’s still open. On Park Square. In Boston. Doing exactly what it’s been doing for 155 years.
The History
Libero Joseph Peretti emigrated from Lugano, Switzerland to Boston and opened his shop in 1870. Within a decade, he’d expanded into a cigar factory with about 50 rollers crafting blended cigars and Clear Havana cigars — smokes made in the U.S. from all-Cuban tobacco. The factory even had a lectore, a person who read aloud to the workers as they rolled, because apparently 19th-century cigar making was also a book club.
The shop has survived the closure of its original North End location, the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike (which claimed the Mass Ave store circa 1956), and approximately 150 years of Boston weather. It now lives at 2½ Park Square, right on Boston Common, in a space that feels less like a retail store and more like a museum that happens to sell tobacco.
The Shop
Walk in and the first thing you notice is that nothing has changed since the 1930s — except the cash register. The wooden shelves, the pipe display, the aging tobacco tins — it all feels preserved in amber. Boston Magazine named it Best Cigar Shop in their 2026 Best of Boston issue, and the shop’s unofficial motto tells you everything you need to know: “If Peretti’s can’t find it, it can’t be found.”
The current owner, Stephen Willett, presides over a vast selection of handmade cigar brands, estate and modern pipes, and an astonishing 80+ house blends of pipe tobacco. The famous Thanksgiving Day Blend — a seven-tobacco pipe blend created in 1939 by Joseph “The Major” Peretti — is still made every November, because some traditions are too good to mess with.
The Selection
For cigars, you’ll find the big names — Arturo Fuente, Padrón, Davidoff, Ashton — plus smaller boutique brands that Willett has relationships with built over decades. When Peretti celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2020, both Arturo Fuente and Padrón made exclusive commemorative cigars for the occasion. That’s the kind of pull this shop has.
The pipe tobacco selection is where Peretti truly separates itself. With 80+ custom blends — many created by Robert Peretti, who worked in the shop until his death in 2019 at age 98 — it’s one of the most extensive pipe tobacco programs in the country. If you’re a pipe smoker and you haven’t been to Peretti’s, you’re doing pipe smoking wrong.
The Vibe
There’s no lounge. There’s no bar. There’s no espresso machine or leather club chairs. There’s just a tobacconist — a real one, the kind that exists in books and memory and very few actual places anymore. You go in, you browse, you talk tobacco with people who know tobacco, and you leave with something good. It’s retail the way retail used to be, before “retail experience” became a thing that required exposed brick and a Spotify playlist.
The Verdict
Rating: 4.5 / 5
L.J. Peretti is a living landmark. If you care about cigar culture, or pipe culture, or the history of American tobacco retail, it’s a pilgrimage site. The selection is excellent, the knowledge is unmatched, and the atmosphere is authentic in a way that can’t be manufactured. The lack of a smoking lounge keeps it from a perfect score — but honestly, that’s part of the charm. Peretti’s isn’t trying to be a lounge. It’s trying to be a tobacconist. And it’s been doing that longer than almost anyone alive.
Photo: Detroit Publishing Co., Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
