Just two months after the popular cannabis company introduced its celebrated strains to the Missouri medical marijuana market through a partnership with Swade, Cookies has officially opened up its own dedicated dispensary in the St. Louis area.
With a big splash and considerable fanfare, the Bay Area-lifestyle brand turned purveyor of potent pot celebrated its grand opening in Florissant on Saturday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a block party featuring performances by several local rappers. A line was already wrapped around the building when the event kicked off at 10 a.m., and some customers had camped out in front of the store for days in advance.
Located at 11088 New Halls Ferry Road, the new dispensary is the first from Cookies in Missouri, and came about through a partnership with 3Fifteen Primo, which transformed its pre-existing Florissant location into the brand’s flagship in the state. According to Jason Corrado, co-founder and CEO of 3Fifteen Primo, the transition started around the same time Cookies’ strains first hit Missouri, when the brand reached out about a collaboration.
“They were excited about the location of the store and decided to work with our team,” Corrado explains. “It came together nicely over two months.”
For Corrado and his partners, the opportunity to attach themselves to the popular brand was a no-brainer.
“It is a phenomenal, multinational, at this point, brand and probably the most recognized brand in cannabis,” he says. “We wanted to attach ourselves to that dream. The people that we’ve been dealing with are fantastic, and really know how to — I mean, you see what we have here — they really know how to merchandise.”
That know-how extends beyond the cannabis products. Cookies was originally founded in 2010 by Bay Area rapper Berner as a clothing and lifestyle store in San Francisco, whose oft-bright-blue, Cookies-branded apparel rapidly became popular among the streetwear set. In keeping, the new location has a good deal of St. Louis-specific clothing and other merchandise for sale alongside its cannabis wares.
Many who showed up to Saturday’s event were clearly already well aware of the fashion options the brand brings, and stood outside in the heat sporting clothing bearing the Cookies logo as they awaited their turn to enter the building. One young man named Kaeson, wearing a Cookies shirt, said anticipation had been building for months for the big day.
“At first they put the sign up, then they took it down and turned it into 3Fifteen for a little while,” he explains. “Now they’re actually opening, so I guess everybody’s been waiting for a while. Like, the whole summer.”
Another young man clad in a Cookies shirt traveled a considerable distance just for the chance to check the store out. Kenneth Fewell, 26, drove two hours from Springfield, Missouri, for the event. He’d heard about the event by watching a video stream of a popular weekly podcast, and was previously a fan of Berner’s music through his collaborations with Wiz Khalifa.
“Actually, I was watching Million Dollaz Worth of Game, I seen that, so it let me know [Berner] was coming out here,” Fewell explains. “Then just from like, a few years back I’ve been listening to his music anyway.”
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