The Artist Tree, which currently operates six cannabis dispensaries and a consumption lounge across California, will celebrate the grand opening of its seventh retail location Oct. 7 in El Sobrante, roughly 10 miles north of Oakland.
The first adult-use cannabis retailer in El Sobrante, The Artist Tree has differentiated itself in California’s market by operating an art gallery space featuring local artists—in addition to selling cannabis.
The company’s other retail locations include dispensaries in West Hollywood, Koreatown (Los Angeles), Beverly Hills, Oxnard, Riverside and Fresno. The Artist Tree also operates a cannabis consumption lounge, called The Studio Lounge, in West Hollywood.
The company sells over 600 items, including prerolls, vape cartridges, concentrates, topicals, edibles and CBD wellness products. Its newest location in El Sobrante will feature the work of local artists, including David Layton.
After its official opening on Oct. 7, The Artist Tree plans to host a grand opening party later in October to greet the community, and will eventually launch a cannabis delivery service in the El Sobrante area.
“It’s actually a beautiful area, but underserved as far as cannabis dispensaries,” Lauren Fontein, The Artist Tree’s chief compliance officer, tells Cannabis Business Times. “And even now, the businesses that do exist are bare bones—not a lot of the newer stores with really nice build-outs. Companies haven’t invested a lot into stores in that area. So, we’re now coming in, and this will be our first Northern California location.”
The Artist Tree remodeled the building in El Sobrante, which was an old smoke shop. Fontein says the storefront is in an accessible area on a major thoroughfare.
“We'll have the same business model that we have in our other locations, where artists can display their work and sell it to customers that come in,” she says. “We don’t take any portion of the sale proceeds—we're just facilitating the sale for the artists.”
Fontein says the local community is excited to have a legal place to purchase cannabis in an area that has not yet seen a licensed adult-use dispensary, even though sales launched in California in 2018.
“That area hasn’t gotten to the same level of stores as areas like LA that are more mature markets,” she says.
The Artist Tree team carefully considers where to set up shop, Fontein says, looking for underserved markets that would appreciate the company’s unique business model.
“We aren’t a bargain shop,” she says. “We put a lot of resources into our build-outs. We really like to cater to a wide range of customers, which includes a lot of middle-aged and even senior customers. Our business model being art-focused really appeals to people that maybe aren’t your stereotypical cannabis consumer. And along with that is the really well-developed customer service and customer education that we can provide. We’re doing something different than your typical pot shop.”
The Artist Tree’s dispensaries are designed to look and feel like an art gallery, with art integrated throughout the cannabis displays. Some of the stores, like the one in El Sobrante, have lobby areas, but others don’t, based on local regulations.
At the El Sobrante store, art is displayed on the walls of the lobby and the check-in area where staff verifies customers’ IDs. Large art exhibits are intertwined with cannabis merchandise in the retail showroom in 6-foot-tall metal frames that are attached to product display cases.
“It really just feels like this perfect hybrid of a high-end boutique and an art gallery,” Fontein says. “There are communities where that really makes sense and resonates, and there are other communities where, maybe just based on the demographic, it wouldn’t make sense to invest a million-plus dollars to build out a store there because it’s just not going to pay off in the long run. People there maybe don’t care about that or are just looking for the lowest-cost option. … That’s the kind of analysis we do in other areas where we open.”
With each new dispensary, The Artist Tree team strives to provide a welcoming, comfortable space for customers to help normalize cannabis.
“When we opened the first Artist Tree in West Hollywood in 2019, it was really revolutionary. It didn’t look like a dispensary,” Fontein says. “People couldn’t even tell it was a dispensary. They’d come in and be like, ‘Am I in the wrong place?’ Or they would just think they were coming to an art gallery. But it was really important to have that because we were at this transition phase in our culture where cannabis was now legalized, but some people weren’t cannabis consumers already. Some people were kind of intimidated by it, and we wanted to normalize that experience and show people that shopping for cannabis doesn't have to be what you might think it is. It can just be on par with any other type of retail experience. And we can build out a really nice store and you can come in and not just experience cannabis, but also experience part of local culture, which is the art.”
The Artist Tree has partnered with Los Angeles-based Art Lounge Collective, which curates the art for the dispensaries’ gallery spaces.
“They’re able to work through their network, … partnering with other local-based art groups to find artists from those communities,” Fontein says of the Art Lounge Collective. “Then, they handle the logistics of communicating with artists going there for the installation.”
The Artist Tree changes the art exhibits in its dispensaries every three months to give different artists the opportunity to showcase their work. Artists can apply to exhibit at The Artist Tree through the company’s website.
The Artist Tree engages with communities in other ways, as well, by hosting food drives, donating a portion of monthly sales to various nonprofit organizations, and sponsoring or volunteering at local events.
“We want to feel like a reflection of that local community,” Fontein says. “That’s a really great way to connect with people and to do things that are meaningful to the people that actually live and work near our stores.”
The Artist Tree has two more facilities under construction, including a dispensary in Ventura and a dispensary with a consumption lounge in Hawthorne. The company also continues to apply for other licenses in California with the hope that it can open a second location in Fresno next year.
“We’re really creating a solid footprint in California, but our next step and our next goal is to move out of state,” Fontein says. “That’s something that we’re actively pursuing right now, to hopefully open a location on the East Coast or in Illinois. There are a lot of states that just now are starting the licensing process, and so we’re hoping to get involved there.”
