What does it mean that when I heard two Syracuse football players have opened their own hookah bar on Marshall Street and found out one of them was Mikhail Marinovich, my first thought was "of course he did."
Say what you will about his off-the-field exploits but I'm enjoying having a Marinovich in the fold. What good is a crappy football program if you don't have that one guy keeping things interesting by breaking into weight rooms in the middle of the night or having his photo taken with a hookah pipe in his mouth?
So yes, Marinovich and punter Niko Rechul have opened Hollywood Hookah at 171 Marshall Street. It opened last night, three months since the two freshman concocted the idea (assumedly while on the football field and looking for something to help take the edge off).
The 2,000-square-foot hookah bar boasts leather couches, wireless Internet and 42-inch flat-screen TVs - even ones for the bathrooms. As for the hookah and the tobacco itself, Marinovich and Rechul said the bar only serves Al Fakher Shisha brand tobacco because of its high quality.
The article doesn't discuss how two college freshman who don't have jobs could afford to open such an establishment, hire staff and buy product, but it's probably best that we all bury our heads in the sand on that anyway.
"Since I've been to so many, I know what to do, what not to do, what's good hookah, what's bad hookah," he said. "And between being on the football team, practicing every day, and then handling school, a lot people think, 'Oh, Mikhail, you don't have time to go out and have fun.' And then we took on this whole thing of opening a hookah lounge."
Valid reasoning. Stretching yourself thin running a business while attending school fulltime and being a member of the Division-1 football team sounds like a great way to take it easy.
The Quad's Pete Thamel makes a good point:
Perhaps they can use the hookah bar to host Greg Robinson’s farewell party?
I think it works, cause you know once it goes down, Greg's gonna have a lot of smoke-to.
Photo Credit: Mackenzie Reiss
H/T: Axeman