Meet Perry Tong of Pop’s Safari Cigars & Fine Wines, Cultural District Studio, and KTF & Collectibles in Fort Worth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Perry Tong.

Perry, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I spent six years in the consumer finance business right out of college. I started managing music groups in the mid-sixties. I spent a short time booking groups live, and on live television. I started producing segments for the old Channel 21 on Broadcast Hill behind Channel 5. From there I formed a company to produce “Southwest Motor Sports” and acquired “Operation Soul” with Curtis Pearce, both 30 minute shows airing on Channel 11. In 1973, I produced my first feature film along with my partner George Tregre. The original title was “Stepsisters”. Currently it is sold on internet as “Hands of Blood.” From 1974 CC III, Inc. produced approximately 400 fishing and outdoor programs for various personalities. In 1982, we made a pilot for “Scuba World” Television Series and successfully found sponsorship. We continued to produce “Scuba World” for 18 years. The last 12 years were on The Travel Channel nationally. I wrote, produced, and directed 250 episodes and specials including several shows for Playboy Television, U.S.A. Network, and Cinemax. In 1996 my wife, Pat, and I founded Pop’s Safari Cigars & Fine Wines. Pop’s is dedicated to the premium cigar and fine wine industry. We built our current facility based on our world travels, while filming “Scuba World”. Our parlour is 1500 square feet. We offer over 35,000 cigars and 3000 bottles of wine. For connoisseurs and aficionados, we try to offer the very best.

Has it been a smooth road?
Remember, I think it was Harry Truman that said, ” if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog”. The same goes for the entertainment business. You need to understand egos at the extreme and have a zipper on every pocket. The people you deal with seem to think every dollar you generate belongs to them. When a picture earns several million and you, as a producer, receives a check for $80K needless to say that ain’t right. If you want to be in show business get used to it. I had the opportunity to work with some great actors, directors, and personalities, all good and honest people. They made up for the occasional Executive Producer, rouge actor, or assistant director that threw a monkey wrench in the works.

Of course, when money is involved there are Lawyers. You will need them. Some are crooks that will swindle you out of every penny. Others are white knights. My friend and lawyer once saved an X rating, that the MPAA threatened because we were accused of murdering a chicken, during a location shoot in 105 degree Texas weather. He wrote a beautiful letter explaining to the Hollywood Elite that our chicken escaped his cage and our animal wrangler attempted to recover the chicken and in doing so the chicken had a heart attack, therefore it was suicide. We got our R rating.

I will have to say moving to episodic television made life much easier. The reports were fair, the payment regular and in general I found it easy to deal with. Of course, the Home Video distributors were crooked but didn’t steal as much. All in all, I enjoyed 18 years of world travel and honest business dealings.

In my retirement phase I can say I love the cigar and wine community. Since 1996, except for the political harassment, we have enjoyed many fine business dealings and made many friends. It is an honest, hardworking group of artists dedicated to providing an exquisite product.

So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Pop’s Safari Cigars & Fine Wines, Cultural District Studios, and KTF & Collectibles, story. Tell us more about the business.
We stock and offer thousands of premium cigars. Our goal is to offer the aficionado, as well as the occasional smoker the very best product on the market. We shop, test, and buy fresh stock on a weekly basis. Cigars are unique in that each is an individual piece of art. From the time, a plant is two inches tall it becomes the focus of the tobacco farmer. Great care is taken to produce a leaf that will make a perfect cigar. I am proud to say the industry studies every aspect of this art form. In our store, we provide five stand up humidors as well as a walking stocked to the brim. Our pipe selection is vast and we have a solo humidor for our pipe tobacco.

We taste and select wines weekly. We have a three-tier quest. First, we select a wine suited for the casual wine drinker. They are wines that satisfy the palate of most people. Our second quest is to select the wines best suited for the advanced connoisseur. And thirdly we seek out rare wines for the collector and those who wish to drink the very best. Our cellar houses wines back to 1908.

Accessories: S.T. Dupont, Vector, Prometheus, Dunhill, Handmade one of a kind.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Baring government harassment the industry will grow with the middle and upper class. If the FDA continues involvement damage is sure to come. The rules and regulations under proposal, and some currently active, are very detrimental. It is ridiculous to expect a government bureaucrat to make rules and regulations based on little or no experience in creating a cigar blend. It’s just more “big brother.”

Pricing:

• Range for cigars $2.50 to $93.00 per stick
• Wine range $16. to $2,500
• Accessories range from $5 to $4,300

Contact Info:

• Address: 2929 Morton Street Fort Worth, TX 76107
• Website: popssafari.com
• Phone: 817-334-0559
• Email: ptong1@swbell.net
• Facebook: Popssafari

Image Credit:
Photos by Pat Tong & My Father Cigars

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