Keeping Portland Weird: Green Muse Dispensary

Any West Coast dispensary owner will tell you this business is no walk in the park. The green rush is like the gold rush: Many have skin in the game, but just a few will strike it rich. That’s especially true in Oregon, a state that licenses cannabis retailers per capita in far greater numbers than comparable states (we’re talking three times that of its northern neighboring state, Washington). More licenses mean more competition—great for consumer prices, but rough on businesses. Competing with mom-and-pop dispensaries are a few large chains such as Nectar, Chalice and La Mota that some see as the only cannabusinesses capable of surviving in today’s oversaturated market.

So how does David beat Goliath when this is the battleground? After speaking with Green Muse Dispensary owners Karanja Crews and Nicole Kennedy, it seems that the weed Goliaths may not need to be defeated for the Davids to prosper. “I don’t feel successful,” Crews tells me. “I’m just being real.”

I already know some of their accomplishments, and I’m about to get into them when Kennedy interjects: “We’re not in multiple locations like Nectar or any of those big companies,” she says. “But we’ve seen a lot of shops close from the time that we’ve opened. I think our ability to last in the industry for as long as we’ve been here—that speaks to our success.”  

As of 2022, only two percent of the nation’s cannabis businesses are Black-owned. For Crews and Kennedy, the learning curve in the cannabis industry was steep. “The industry is still very exclusive and hard to get into,” Kennedy says. Crews didn’t have retail experience outside of a few retail jobs as a teenager. And Kennedy says the only entrepreneurial experience under her belt came from watching her parents run their own businesses. But their dynamic is well-balanced: Crews has a talent for product curation, and Kennedy’s been handling the HR and policy regulation side of things.

They were both teachers in the Portland School District before they teamed up to start Green Muse (formerly known as Green Hop) in 2018, the world’s first historical hip-hop-themed dispensary. They’ve uniquely color-coded terpene profiles to match various musical artists and genres, including blues, jazz, rock and reggae. Hip-hop memorabilia adorn the walls, counters and display cases. When you enter the bright green and yellow Craftsman style home-turned-shop, you can tell you’re walking into a place that’s well loved. The opposite of sterile, modern, chic storefronts that come a dime a dozen in today’s market, this space and its treasures are asking you to stay a while and make a connection.

The budtender on duty is Dr. J. He’s worked for Green Muse off and on since the doors opened and tells me it’s fun when they all get to talk about a new strain and decide which artist fits the vibe, or when someone walks in and asks about that Bootsy Collins strain they used to have—and he’ll remember exactly what they’re talking about.  

Sure, there are chain dispensaries that’ll always be a threat to small, independent dispensaries, but Green Muse has something that can’t ever be taken away: community re-investment. They’ve been the recipient of several grants because this teacher duo is doing more than creating a one-of-a-kind retail experience. Rather, they’re helping young people of color break into an industry that’s highly whitewashed. “The grants allow us to run Green Muse Academy,” Kennedy says.

Dr. J was in the second cohort of Green Muse’s workforce development academy where primarily Black youth (ages 21-25) learn about the cannabis industry while earning a living wage. “When Dr. J came in, he had just started going to the school of naturopathic medicine,” Kennedy says. “He then graduated from Green Muse Academy with cannabis knowledge and returned to Green Muse as a naturopathic physician. It was a full circle moment.”

Academy cohorts range up to a dozen people or so, and while participants may start with various workforce experiences, they have no cannabis experience. According to Kennedy, the last cohort was able to visit a farm to learn about growing, then go to a laboratory and learn how cannabis gets tested and how they determine THC levels in a plant—all while making a decent living. “I don’t know where you can do that in the cannabis industry,” she says. 

In 2023, the Future Ready Oregon grant was awarded to Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, Green Muse’s partner in the career training program. The City of Portland is unique in requiring some municipal cannabis sales tax revenues to be reinvested into the city’s communities most harmed by cannabis arrests and convictions, which is how Green Muse also received city grants disbursed through the nonprofit NuProject.

It’s clear that Green Muse adds more value to its community than just another multi-state cannabis retailer. I ask Crews if he feels connected to his community. “Oh, absolutely,” he says without hesitation. “I think that’s our strong point.”