Roll Your Own Cigarettes Depot

As the name promises, Roll Your Own Cigarettes Depot in Belmont is built around the roll your own crowd, and locals will tell you the loose tobacco here is the real draw. People who order leaf swear it shows up fresh and smokes clean, and the papers and tubes to go with it cover the big names: RAW, Zig-Zag, Top, Job, Gambler, Good Stuff and Bugler-style staples like OHM, Cheyenne and Seneca. Whether you roll your own or buy them made, the shelves run deep. Beyond the tobacco, this is a proper full tobacco shop.

You will find cigars and cigarillos from Swisher Sweets, Backwoods, Black and Mild, Dutch Masters, White Owl, Phillies, Optimo and Cohiba, plus clove smokes from Djarum. Pipe smokers have Captain Black and Prince Albert to reach for, and the hookah corner is stocked with Al Fakher, Starbuzz and Fantasia shisha. Glass pipes, water pipes, wraps, grinders and the usual accessories round it out, so it is the kind of place where you can walk in for one thing and leave having found three more. The people behind the counter are a big part of why regulars keep coming back.

Ask anyone who shops here and Nelson comes up again and again for patient, knock it out of the park service, answering every question a first timer can throw at him. Donna gets the same praise for being helpful and genuine and keeping the store neat and easy to browse. We have heard the team will note what you use and make a point of keeping it stocked for your next trip. The word around Belmont is that the prices are hard to beat, and folks who order regularly mention solid savings even when a backordered item means a short wait.

Fair to say opinion isn't unanimous, and a couple of people have bumped heads over coupons, but most walk out happy. For a well regarded tobacco shop in Belmont, North Carolina, this one earns its steady following.