Wholesale Hookah Supplies - What Lounges Need to Get Started & Thrive
Wholesale Hookah Supplies for Hookah Lounges
When you start shopping for the supplies you will need to open a hookah lounge, it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the options between the hoses, coals and other accessories. There is so much variety out there, and it might not be easy to figure out which products work best for a lounge application. Some products are designed for and work best in retail stores, while others are specifically made and ideal for use in your lounge. Here is a list of just a few of our recommended items for hookah lounges, so you can piece together what you need to purchase in order to open the doors and the supplies you will need to keep on hand to thrive in the hookah industry. Let us know if you have any questions, because there are plenty of other options, and our expert team can help you customize your inventory to fit your needs.
Best Coals for Your Hookah Lounge
In the last few years, the major hookah charcoal manufacturers figured out that hookah lounges want to buy coals in bulk and save money by not paying for all the unnecessary packaging that ends up in the trash. As a hookah lounge, we highly recommend using a brands like Coco Brico or Titanium that offer 10 Kilogram coals in bulk, specifically designed for hookah bars in mind. It's 1 big box with over 1000 coals inside! They are priced for lounges rapidly burning through coals but you still get the same premium quality of buying them in individual kilo boxes.
Coco Brico Lounge Packs of Hookah Charcoal
Titanium Hookah Coal Lounge Packs
Best Hookah Hoses for Hookah Lounges
The best hoses for hookah lounges have to be durable, flexible, washable and allow for smooth, unrestricted air-flow. The market in general has shifted to hoses made with silicone tubing because of its durability and how easy it is to clean. You need durable hoses to reduce the costs of maintaining your lounge. It's expensive to buy 50 hoses every couple of months or worse to offer your customers old stinky hoses that are coming apart. Being able to clean your hoses will prevent the "ghosting" effect, where strong flavors linger in the hose and ruin the flavor for the next customer. That is why these hoses have become the standard for so many lounges that we cannot recommend them enough.
Ripper Silicone Hookah Hoses available in 5 colors
Mya Saray Frosted Handle and Rubber Handle Silicone Hoses
On the other hand, there are more traditional hoses that are washable and work great for lounges while still having a more traditional Egyptian look and feel. If you want to preserve a little more of the Middle Eastern aesthetic while still using hookah hoses that are washable and durable we have some great options available.
Tonic Egyptian XL Washable Hoses
There are also hookah lounges that prefer to use disposable hoses in their lounge, so that each hookah rental gets a fresh clean hose. The customer then has the option to dispose of the hose or some will elect to take the hose home for personal use, because though they are "disposable," these hoses can be washed and used repeatedly. It will increase your costs on a per bowl basis, however the margins on hookah rentals are huge, so it's easy to price the costs of the hoses into your business model.
Hookah Bowls for Lounges
We estimate that probably 80% of hookah lounges will use the standard clay Egyptian bowls or a similar "Egyptian style" bowl (standard hookah bowl shape with the a few holes at the bottom) because they are widely available, very inexpensive and hookah lounges have been using them for hundreds of years around the world. These bowls work with virtually any hookah regardless of brand or style.They are a proven performer that is durable and easy to set up an maintain. They generally hold 15 - 25 grams of shisha tobacco.
Upgrading to Vortex style hookah bowls is a way to differentiate your lounge from the competition. These bowls have a more advanced design with a central spire and a circular trough on the perimeter to hold the tobacco. The advantages are that they prevent the flavoring juices from dripping out of the bowl. This helps the flavors to last longer with thicker some and it also keeps your hookahs and the hookah water cleaner during the session. These bowls may take a little trial and error to find the perfect packing method, but the results can be fantastic and give your lounge a real competitive advantage.
Hookah Supplies People Tend to Forget
When purchasing hookah bar supplies, it's easy to forget the little things you need for a fully functioning lounge. These include the miscellaneous items you need to finish your bowl preparation and service customers who are smoking in your lounge. To get your coals fully ignited as quickly as possible, you need to have a couple of coal heaters on hand. An now that the customer is smoking they will need coal refills after 45 minutes or so. We recommend a hookah coal carrier to load up, and then do quick round through your lounge, refilling coals as requested by your guests.
Now that you have coals on the burner, it's time to prepare the bowl for the customer who just ordered. Let's dig into that jar of shisha. You've probably noticed that your hands are covered in juice and you are burning through paper towels at an obscene rate. Try the shisha fork. We love to load bowls with the fork, because is keeps our hands clean and we can use the fork to manipulate the shisha in the bowl. This accessory will save you it's weight in gold with paper towel savings alone. Now that the bowl is loaded, let's top off that bowl with hookah foils. If you want to save some money, you can buy a roll of foil, and then spend your time tearing off squares, teaching your staff how to do that, then poking the foils for each customer. The second option is to buy pre-cut foils so you have them ready to go at all times, then to make your life easier, you can even buy them with the holes already punched. Some lounge operations prefer the automated, easy approach of pre-punched hookah foils, while other operators have a proven method of proprietary foil punching patterns and will use a Fumari foil poker to customize their foil holes.
Perhaps the most overlooked and often forgotten item that is mission critical. These are extra grommets for your hoses, bowls and even for the glass bases. These tiny little rubber seals keep your pipe in working order, and over time the grommets will wear out or just magically disappear. Hose and bowl grommets are extremely cheap, so grab bag of 100 hose and bowl hookah grommets to keep on hand. Trust me, it's very cheap, compared to shutting down a hookah for the night and losing out on bowl rentals because you are missing a $0.20 grommet.
High Roller Hookah Lounge Upgrades for Premium Lounges
Before we sign off, we wanted to highlight a few premium accessories that hookah lounges can use to upgrade their customers experience, with better smoking bowls, quicker service and smoke enhancing effects. The Kaloud Lotus and Samsaris Vitra bowl combo uses a silicone body with a glass phunnel bowl insert that will not only extend your shisha flavor and cloud density, it will also keep your hookahs nice and clean. The bowl is designed to work perfectly with the Kaloud Lotus HMD. The lotus is a heat management device that holds the charcoals in place of using foils. The lotus traps the heat from your coals and distributes the heat more evenly across the shisha tobacco. This not only extends the life of your coals (saving you money), but it also nearly eliminates having to rotate coals to prevent scorching. By spending the money upfront on the Kaloud Lotus setup, you can lower your labor costs dramatically. Now you can service 100 hookahs in your lounge with minimal staff. You will make your money back on reduced payroll and pocket the gains all while giving your customers a premium experience that your competitors just aren't doing.
Adding ice to hookahs has been a favorite upgrade since the beginning because the cold smoke lets customers take bigger puffs of smoke and the cool temperature is kind of "tingly." To really escalate the effect to the next level, combine the ice in the base water with a Deezer Freeze Hose. Some lounges will offer freeze hoses as an extra and charge $2-$5 per session to use them. The hose handle goes in the freezer to get icy cold, then pull it out for the customer who will enjoy their favorite hookah smoke chilled just as they inhale. These hoses are washable and durable and worth the investment since they demand a premium price for every use.
