Cannabis Shop Aims For Connection, Community In Englishtown
ENGLISHTOWN, NJ — A new recreational cannabis dispensary has come to Englishtown.
Founded by Chante Stewart-Wallace and Joao (John) Soares, Bud It Up will host its grand opening this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 34 Main St. in Englishtown, on the second floor of the building.
The opening is the culmination of a long planning and approval process.
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“Me and my business partner John actually worked together,” Stewart-Wallace said in an interview with Patch. “He was my boss at a previous company, and we heard that licenses with the Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC) had recently released, and we ended up forming the partnership, seeing if we can try to get a license.”
Licenses from the CRC allow for medicinal and recreational cannabis business operations in New Jersey. Each cannabis business requires a license, according to officials, which must be active and in good standing to perform any commercial cannabis activity.
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“We had started out attempting to get a grow license (the license for a person or business that grows cannabis), but as we continued our research we found that starting that up would be a big operation,” Stewart-Wallace said. “So we had pivoted and ended up heading toward the retail direction.”
When it came to finding a location for Bud It Up, Stewart-Wallace said Englishtown almost felt “ordained” to be their business’ home.
“John is a longtime resident of Englishtown, so he has raised his family there and has forged a lot of relationships,” Stewart-Wallace said. “It felt like it was ordained almost, like everything just fell into place. A lot of hurdles that other people may have had in finding a location, it kind of just opened up as a path for us because of John’s relationships with his neighbors and community in Englishtown.”
Community is a large part of Bud It Up’s vision.
While Bud It Up is a cannabis store, it’s also somewhere that Stewart-Wallace and Soares want people to feel connected with one another.
As a woman-owned and diversely-owned dispensary, Stewart-Wallace said Bud It Up’s space has been curated to integrate her background, Soares’ Portuguese background and the background of Englishtown residents.
“We tried to make sure that we had Englishtown at the forefront, and that everything that we created in that space was inclusive of the general area,” Stewart-Wallace said.
“We’re intending to do community events, educational classes on specific things, usage, book clubs, things of that nature,” she said. “Just ways to incorporate cannabis, or just the general knowledge of cannabis, for classes and enrichment.”
Beyond Stewart-Wallace and Soares’ current plans for Bud It Up, the two hold a vision for larger developments later on.
Currently, Stewart-Wallace said the dispensary is working on a lounge/consumption area that will be linked to Bud It Up, as well as grow and manufacturing operations.
On Saturday, Stewart-Wallace and Soares will host the dispensary’s grand opening. Ax throwing, food trucks and a DJ are just some of the features Stewart-Wallace said attendees can look forward to.
“It’s [Bud It Up] our baby,” Stewart-Wallace said. “I feel that, because we are a smaller operation, a lot of the things we had to do on our own. It was literally just me and John putting this together — putting our blood, sweat and tears into this.”
“We are small,” Stewart-Wallace continued. “And we’re just trying to become something big.”
To learn more about Bud It Up, you can visit their website.
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