The Ranger Online

Issue date: 10/5/07 Section: Features

The place was packed with all kinds of people from Saudi National Guard officers to college and high school students.

Some people were smoking shisha while others were eating and conversing. Some were even playing cards.

Whatever reason the people at the Shisha Cafe were there for, it was obvious they were relaxing and enjoying their time.

Sam Fulk, 21, who works for Builder's First Source, said, while passing the shisha hose to her friend Michelle Middleton, her friend Mark was the one who told them about this place.

Fulk said that she and Middleton come here at least twice a month to smoke and relax. Middleton, 19, who planned to attend Northwest Vista College in the fall, said she had never tried the food, but she loves the hookah, which is another name for shisha.

Saudi National Guard 1st Lt. Majed Alshammari, 28, who is stationed at Lackland Air Force Base for a 1-year training program, said he is a daily patron of the café.

"I come here to smoke and eat along with my colleagues from work," Alshammari said,

Alshammari and three of his fellow officers were sitting outside on the patio under a big tree while watching Arabic music videos on a flat screen TV that was hanging on the cafe's window on the inside and facing outward toward the customers.

"We love the outside patio seating with the grass and the trees, and no other place in town offers that," Capt. Saad Alqahtani, one of Alsharmmari's colleages, said.

Sitting to the right of the Saudi officers were four middle-aged Arab men playing cards.

Nofan Aldmour, 51, who owns a hookah bar and restaurant in San Marcos, and yet, still comes over to Shisha Cafe to meet his friends and play cards on his free time.

"It is kind of a nice getaway from the headache of family and work sometimes," Aldmour said, grinning.

Katie Benson, a 21-year-old senior at the University of the Incarnate Word, said she started frequenting the place about eight months ago.

"I come here to enjoy the shisha with my sorority sisters," Benson said.

Marshall High School senior Sarah Reyes, 18, said she and her friends have been to other places like Sultan Cafe down the road, but they still prefer the atmosphere at Shisha Cafe.

"I found this place by accidentally driving by," Chelsea Perez said looking at the 12 faces of her friends at the table.

"We can come here and enjoy ourselves for two to three hours without doing anything illegal and just chill," Reyes said.

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