How’s it growing folks!? Welcome to another fun episode of Here Weed Go!, the podcast focused on finding high-end cannabis content for your national marijuana needs. I'm your host Eddie Celaya, cannabis reporter for the Arizona Daily Star and TucsonMarijuanaGuide.com.
While I might be based in Tucson, all of you regular listeners of the podcast know I love to travel and love traveling even more when there’s some top-shelf weed involved.
So for this episode, we’re taking a deep toke and getting introspective about one of the most successful independent dispensary chains in the country.
And it just so happens that its flagship shop is just north up interstate 10 in a small Phoenix suburb known as Guadalupe, Arizona.
For anyone that’s driven pretty much anywhere in Arizona, they know I’m talking about The Mint, a chain of dispensaries in the Phoenix area (with a future presence in Tucson possible in the near future) known state-wide due to the company’s old-school approach to marketing with billboards.
The flagship shop is also the only location in Arizona to be open 24 hours (although a new Mint location in the works will also be open round the clock), feature an active marijuana grow room that customers and patients can see into, and is the only dispensary in the country with an in-house kitchen making infused made-to-order cakes, pies, pizzas and wings, as well as other cannabis-infused culinary confections.
As a quick aside, I’ve been to some enormous and impressive dispensaries in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Seattle, and The Mint’s Guadalupe location, where this interview took place, can certainly hang with any of them.
Both in terms of products available and showmanship
I’ve done recent episodes on how things are going in Michigan and Missouri, and it just so happens that The Mint also has a presence in those states as well.
To help me get a better grasp of The Mint and how it operates, I spoke with the companies co-founder and chief operating officer, Raul Molina.
Molina, who came into cannabis from the car sales industry, is a near legendary figure in the Arizona market. During our conversation, we were interrupted no less than three times by local businessmen just looking to introduce themselves and exchange numbers with the man.
Once we got going, we touched on the origins of The Mint and how the company has grown in and out of state, how the old-school tactics marketing tactics of billboards and radio spots has worked for the company in an age of increasing online footprints, and just how successful The Mint has been.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.