Down on the corner of Fourth and Liberty St., Wake students sit in a cafe on a leather couch drawing puffs of cool, apple-flavored smoke from a three-foot high water pipe as locals rubberneck through the windows: “They let you do that? In public?”

No, they explain multiple times, there is no marijuana and this is a perfectly legal endeavor – it’s Winston-Salem’s newest Jordanian import, an honest-to-goodness hookah lounge.

Bon Appetit Mediterranean Cafe opened the lounge – the city’s first – a few weeks ago and it’s already drawing a college crowd. But this is just the beginning, according to the owner – belly dancers, Bedouin decor and pillow-lounges should be here by spring.

Owner Jamal Al-Najjar (“everybody calls me Jimmy”) made it happen. He took over management of Bon Appetit 3½ years ago.

“Most of the coffee shops overseas have hookahs – young people have a smoke, a cup of coffee, they talk about life, you know?” says Al-Najjar, who immigrated to the United States 22 years ago. “It takes a long time to smoke … young guys like to talk about sports, politics. They relax.”

The hookah, a Middle Eastern invention, uses charcoal bricks to burn tobacco. Users draw on cloth-wrapped hoses, pulling the smoke through the water base. Depending on the number of hoses on a hookah, as many as six people can smoke one. It’s a social activity.

When patrons want a hookah, they rent one from the counter and from then on it’s full service: cleaned, prepped and complete with a sanitary disposable plastic mouthpiece. They’ll even resituate your charcoal briquette for you. Deep-fried appetizers and standard lunch fare are available should the munchies strike mid-smoke.

Right now, the cafe is half-lunch joint, half-hookah bar – the smoking couches butt against the front windows, situated around coffee tables. Al-Najjar wants to do more.

“I’m redecorating in the Bedouin style,” he says, “you know - you’re laying down in the floor, with a hookah and cup of coffee, just relaxing. I want to create the atmosphere of the inside of a tent – pillows and couches everywhere.”

And of course, there is the matter of belly dancers to discuss.

“Ah!” says Al-Najjar, “they'll be dancing between the tables, you’re here smoking your hookah.” The dancers, local students of Middle Eastern styles, are scheduled to start soon. They’ll dance at night, luring bar-bound passers-by inside for a smoke break.

Jeff Smith, of SmittysNotes.com, stopped by recently to check out the new spot for his newsletter.

“It is really relaxing and fun,” Smith said, “it’s right with the development of downtown.” Smith added that it filled a niche in the Winston-Salem social scene and that it was in a good location.

The Egyptian tobacco Al-Najjar stuffs his hookahs with is sweet, sticky and flavored – pulling it through the water cools it and makes it very easy to inhale, even for a non-smoker. He stocks a variety of flavors, from apple to vanilla to strawberry, and he doesn’t charge much: $7 for two people, $15 for three to four. That includes the hookah and enough tobacco to last over an hour.

Al-Najjar said he got the idea from customer feedback.

“We don’t have [a venue like this] here in Winston-Salem … a lot of them asked,” he said. His idea was born, and Al-Najjar started ordering hookahs from as far as his native Jordan and as near as California.

Now that he’s got them up and running, he’s all about the young business.

“I want to concentrate more on the college students,” he says, talking about future renovations. “On weekends, I [already] keep the place open late in the night. We have guitar players, and I keep the hookahs out.”

“I like to be with the students, like the fun days,” he adds with a grin. His “fun days” took place at Sofia University in Belgium, where he graduated in ’84 with a chemistry degree. After a job as a water treatment plan engineer, he decided he wanted to be his own boss at something he liked. Hence, the smoke bar.

The new decorations go up tentatively in fall and early spring, though Al-Najjar has not set a clear timeline. He says it’s too early, and currently is in the lengthy process of obtaining a liquor and beer license.

Wake students liked the new flavor but wished that the license would go through already.

“This place would be great if you could have a beer or two with your smoke,” said senior Mike Preczewski, “but it’s really good now.”

“This is nice,” agreed senior Joe Piasta, “something out of the ordinary.”