Boutique dispensary opens high-end showroom

Like any dispensary worth its salt, you smell the product at the newly designed Botanica showroom and lobby before you see it.

However, once you walk in and see, touch and smell more of the nearly 3,000-square-foot lobby and showroom at 6205 N. Travel Center Dr., you start to understand this isn’t like any other dispensary in southern Arizona.

The showroom is replete with portable wooden islands displaying the latest in cannabis-infused edibles and concentrates, all in front of boysenberry-purple, wall-mounted, Gem Show-like displays featuring the many marijuana strains available at the dispensary that’s located near the Interstate 10 frontage road south of Orange Grove Road.

“A lot of people focus on discounts, and making the experience cheap, cheap, cheap, and that’s fine,” says Botanica owner and operator Bryan Hill. “That’s a totally valid model. A lot of people do very well with that. We wanted to go the other way. Like how elevated could you make the experience?”

Hill explained how Botanica, a locally owned and independent premium dispensary, which also has a small 5,000-square-foot indoor grow operation in a separate warehouse in the rear, has been located in the same building since coming online to serve medical marijuana patients in 2014.

To stay open during the recent remodel of the lobby, which was two years in the making and took 10 months to complete, operations were moved outside.

“We ended up doing a big wedding tent in the parking lot, and our customers and our sales staff were working outside essentially,” Hill said. It wasn’t until two weeks ago that the redesign was complete and everyday operations could move back indoors.

Before the recent remodel, the dispensary was designed for customers to be queued in separate lines only to interact with an employee behind a waist-high partition. Products were also mostly in the back of house, out of view for customers.

“The old model, the traditional model, which was you wait in the line, you get called in the back, then you can begin your shopping on a one-to-one basis,” Hill said.

That’s similar to most dispensaries, especially here in Southern Arizona, where boutique-style showrooms have not proliferated. It’s the opposite of what Hill and his team wanted to do in the re-design.

“Two years ago, we started talking about the design, and the creative team said the worst thing that we could do is be normal. That would be worse than being bad. So let’s try to make something, that whatever it is, won’t be generic, contemporary, boring.”

Now?

Customers walk through Botanica’s front door and are greeted by a receptionist area highlighted with tasteful bamboo accents and directed to either the showroom on the left for those looking to browse, or toward the purchasing counter on the right, where employees serve customers whose orders are displayed on an old jet set-era arrival/departure board.

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Those who choose to browse (and everyone is welcome to, says Hill) will find products they can pick up and examine. It’s a layout that is meant to create curiosity and help soothe the fears of customers who might be apprehensive toward marijuana in general.

“There’s people that are still learning about cannabis or getting used to it are canna-curious,” Hill said. “This is really built to be very open and very welcoming to everybody, and we’re treating it like a normal product.”

Cammy Carlisle, the inventory manager for Botanica, said she does her best to make sure Arizona brands are prominently out on display, especially now as more products have come on-line with the proliferation of adult-use recreational marijuana.

“Probably more than 50% of our THC products are from Arizona. I really try to work with Arizona-based brands as much as I can,” she said, noting that all products are made and produced here, by law, in Arizona. National brands often sign agreements with local growers and producers to make their branded products in each state.

The new showroom is also a showcase of some of the finest strains of marijuana in Botanica’s (and other local brands) repertoire.

Strains are exhibited, art or trophy-like, in enclosed alcoves set into the walls lining the showroom, with individual overhead lighting illuminating each strain’s physical characteristics, while accompanying placards showcase their flavor and cannabinoid profiles, reminiscent of museums alerting patrons to the works of notable former masters.

Along with the improved showroom, Hill said he and his team have worked hard to improve the customer experience.

That includes using its website to allow customers who might be apprehensive about trying marijuana products to ask questions in online consultations.

Employees at Botanica try nearly every product to help make recommendations and suggestions, Carlisle said.

“People offer their products and I take them, and I distribute them to our whole staff, and we actually have them fill out a review on them,” she said.

That helps employees on the showroom floor, who are equipped with tablets, assist with customers’ purchases.

“I really love the way that our stores flow,” says Sarah Crawford, a Botanica employee. “We can go ahead and talk to somebody in the front reception and then get them to the back and have that consultation with them, but also get to say goodbye to them. And it’s just like a very immersive experience.”