Minneapolis has neighborhood coffee shops, neighborhood bars, neighborhood bodegas, and neighborhood dry cleaners. With the ever-expanding THC legalization in Minnesota, could neighborhood weed stores be next?
If you live near Bryant Avenue and 36th Street in south Minneapolis, the answer to that query is yes. Since its soft opening in December, Flipside Dispensary and Music has been selling a modest-but-varied mix of CBD and THC products. But like any good neighborhood shop, husband-and-wife co-owners Tess and Josh Fellman want you to feel like you’re welcome to stop by and just hang. That’s where the used vinyl listening lounge comes in.
“We know that 90% of our traffic is going to be from people who can either walk or bike here,” Josh says. “So we wanted to give them a space to spend time if they need 30 minutes to like, chill out.”
Located across the street from Bogart’s Donuts and kitty-corner from Gigi’s Cafe, Flipside is located in an area (technically the edge of East Harriet) teeming with apartment complexes both affordable and luxury, condos, single-family homes, and a large senior living facility. That’s made for some interesting clientele, from seasoned THC pros in their twenties to boomers who never moved beyond buying ditch weed in college. And yes, septuagenarians sometimes stop by too.
“We get people from the Walker [senior complex], who are 75, 80 years old and they come in here asking about edibles,” Josh says, noting that their shop will be a featured stop on an upcoming group field trip. “It's amazing.”
The storefront has gotten a major overhaul since it was Calhoun Pet Supply. In the front there’s a drink cooler and a CBD wall. A case features a wide collection of THC tinctures, gummies, honeys, and sweets—there’s even a box of weed brownie mix—handily arranged into two main groupings: energetic highs and mellow buzzes.
In the center there’s stereo speakers repurposed as display cases featuring the store’s in-house brand of gummies; all come with a Spotify playlist of recommended tunes to listen to while enjoying them (they also regularly update their "Current Obsessions" playlist).
In the back, there’s a music hang out spot featuring a wall of records (most are priced at $5), a record player, and vestibules for easy listening.
“People come in and just spend 45 minutes back here either listening to records or hanging out and talking while their friends are shopping for stuff,” Josh says.
“We have an older gentleman in his 80s who had his daughter send him a record player to so you can come in and buy records,” Tess adds.
For the duo, adding musical elements to the shop was a no-brainer.
“Music always has this way of taking you out of the chaos, and giving you this little moment, whether it's a connection to yourself or a moment you want to remember,” Tess says. “Life is about chasing those little moments and getting out of the chaos. Music helps you do that. Cannabis helps you do that.”
As for future plans, they’d like to start hosting local artist pop-ups, and are hoping to go full-dispensary when recreational flower sales become legal, though that could take over a year. It’s important for them to get that head start though, before the THC megastores arrive and take a big slice of that weed pie.
“The reality is that when we get full recreational, national players are gonna come in and we can't compete with their capital,” Tess says. “So we really thought about how to make sure that this is a really great functional space, but also one that can transition quickly to becoming a dispensary.”
