Where Lone Acorn Came From

I started Lone Acorn because I wanted to bring the best cannabis and a premium experience to Raleigh. 

As a long-time cyclist, I’ve always loved going to bike shops. Bikes are beautiful, and the best shops display them in a way that highlights their aesthetics, design, and innovation. It’s not just the bikes, people who work in bike shops are cut from the same cloth: down to earth, pretty nerdy, and even when they seem misanthropic, they care about you because you ride a bike. (A lot of them also use cannabis.) The best bike shops engrain themselves in their communities, some sell coffee or beer, and some have cool memorabilia. That’s why they’re always places I seek out when I’m traveling. 

As cannabis has become legal in more and more places, dispensaries have also joined that list. Besides satisfying my appreciation for the finer things, I think premium dispensaries help to chip away some of the stigma around cannabis. 

Last December I was on Long Island visiting family. It was a quick trip, so going out to a destination dispensary in Brooklyn wasn’t an option. Instead, I found a place 15 minutes away in Queens. It was a small, corner unit in a working class neighborhood, next door to a place with a Curtis Sliwa for Mayor flyer still up a month after the election. Inside, it was beautiful. The selection was great, the people were friendly, and it was all displayed in a way that highlighted the aesthetics, design, and innovation happening in cannabis. 

The entire trip back, I kept thinking about how small can be beautiful. I kept wondering why the corner shop in Queens felt a cut above the places I had been to in Raleigh. After researching the economics of opening and running a hemp-based dispensary in NC, and designing a business plan that minimized start-up costs while increasing our number of iterative cycles (learning opportunities), Lone Acorn was founded. 

Our idea is simple: bring the best cannabis products to the people of Raleigh in a way that's elevated, welcoming, and knowledgeable. We want to create a space that appreciates both form and function and quietly embodies the quality of what we sell. 

That’s why we don’t sell house brands. We’re not farmers, and we don’t pretend to be. Our cannabis probably wouldn’t be very good if we grew it. Instead, we source the best products from all over the country. (We’re the people who say “yes” to more THCA / D9 ads on social media because we’re always looking.) We often buy the hemp-based versions of the brands you love from states that are known for great cannabis

The idea might be simple, but our goals aren’t. In ten years, we want to be living in a North Carolina where cannabis is regulated through a legal market. We want to be engaging with the community in ways that represent our values and give back. And we want to be the go-to place in Raleigh for high-end cannabis. 

BT