This 114-Year-Old Family-Owned Tobacco Shop Is a Piece of New York History 

Barclay Rex, downtown’s century-plus-old tobacco shop now located at 126 Pearl St., has an interesting namesake.

“Rex was my grandfather’s dog when he was a child,” owner Vanessa Nastri told the Downtown Alliance. “The dog used to be in the store as the advertisement. They had a blanket over the dog that said the name of the shop, and he would sit in the window with my great-grandfather and grandfather while they made pipes.”

Nastri’s great-grandfather, Vincent Nastri, was a pipemaker in Sicily; in 1910, after immigrating to the United States, he opened Barclay Rex on Barclay Street, where he sold pipes and tobacco. The shop has moved around the neighborhood a few times in its nearly 115 years — past locations include Maiden Lane and Broad Street — but the ownership has stayed within the family all this time. Nastri even remembers visiting the Maiden Lane location in the mid-1980s and 1990s as a child.

“My dad used to bring me on my days off from school, on holidays and in the summertime,” she said. “Anytime I smell a pipe or pipe tobacco, that’s what really brings back all those memories.”

Back then, the store drew a big Wall Street crowd, with suit-clad men coming in to buy goods as well as smoke and chat. Nastri says store patrons included local celebrities like John F. Kennedy Jr. and Yankees managers Joe Torre and Joe Girardi, along with New York politicians. The vibe in the store, she says, felt like family. 

“Even if they didn’t know each other personally, there were constant conversations going on, about not only just pipes and cigars and tobacco and everything, but just about New York City,” Nastri said. “It was a very friendly environment.” 

Today, Barclay Rex, which has been at its current location since 2016, sells pipe tobacco, including special house-made blends, along with premium cigars, handmade pipes and other cigar-related accessories. They have a special smoking license and a free public lounge in the basement, so you can give their wares a try in-store (“Come in, you buy a cigar, we cut it and you can come down and smoke,” Nastri said). For the true believers, there’s an exclusive smoking club above the shop complete with cigar storage, with yearly and monthly memberships available. (Notably, the private club features a giant statue of Rex, which alone is worth the price of membership.)     

Nastri took over the business from her father in 2019 when he fell ill suddenly, and found herself shepherding it through the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“When he got sick, we had to make a decision within like a week, shut the doors or somehow jump in and try to figure this out,” Nastri said. “And I just couldn’t shut the doors.”

Nastri, a school speech pathologist, stepped up. The shop made it through pandemic-related shutdowns by pivoting to no-contact pickup service, and though, like many other establishments, it saw an ensuing dip in sales and customer numbers, business has been picking up — Nastri says this past summer was the busiest since the pandemic started, with new customers looking to get into pipe-smoking. (As a reminder, please use tobacco products responsibly.) 

In addition to new wares for purchase, Barclay Rex has vintage pipes dating back to the 1940s and 1950s, as well as vintage cigar paraphernalia and other old-school goodies. In general, the shop feels (and smells) like a delightful trip back in time. And for Nastri especially, it’s an essential and longstanding piece of her family history. 

“So many people walk in and they tell me stories about my dad,” she said. “I learn so much about my dad from these customers.”