Portland Is Saturated With Pot Shops. Here Are Three Committed to Community With Unique Themes Ranging From Hip-Hop to Houseplants.

There are around 350 dispensaries in Portland.

In fact, if you live in the city proper, there’s probably one in your immediate neighborhood. Walking distance even. And though the retail price of weed is holding steady at around five bucks a gram, the atmosphere of these storefronts can, to say the least, vary.

Many of us want to support the shops in our own neighborhoods, which is understandable. But there are dispensaries all over town that offer much more than glass accessory shelves and branded hoodies that make them worth the trip. In fact, some stores—aside from satisfied employees and welcoming energies—are actively working to influence contemporary cannabis culture.

So the next time you are up for a change of pace, happen to be exploring a different neighborhood, or embark on an epic strain hunt, check out one of these dispensaries currently on our radar:

Green Muse

5515 NE 16th Ave., 971-420-4917, gogreenmuse.com. Noon-7 pm daily.

Green Muse (formerly Green Hop) is the city’s first, and only, hip-hop dispensary. Housed in the historically Black Vernon neighborhood, Green Muse has deep community roots, as evidenced by its tribute to now-closed One Stop Music—one of the only Black-owned record stores in Portland. Classic albums line the shelves alongside top-shelf strains, vintage cassette cases are displayed like objets d’art, and mixtapes are stacked beside books documenting the history of hip-hop.

If you’re drawn to the music of politically charged, community-centric hip-hop artists like Brand Nubian and KRS-One, you’ll feel right at home here. Founders Karanja Crews and Nicole Kennedy see the criminalization of both rap music and cannabis as fruit from the same rotten, racist tree, and their primary goal is to rejuvenate the community’s connection to both, while scrubbing the neighborhood of any leftover stigma. If both cannabis and hip-hop are among the loves of your life, Green Muse awaits your patronage, and the soundtrack is dope AF.

Somewhere

2128 NW Overton St., 503-384-2466, somewherepdx.com. 10 am-8 pm daily.

Somewhere is a whimsically named dispensary and nursery featuring a curated menu of cannabis products as well as a collection of lush houseplants for sale. The airy storefront is reminiscent of a small art gallery or pop-up artisan gift shop, which makes it all the more fun to peruse the shelves. Rather than lining the walls with bud jars, edibles, dabs and doodads behind the counter, products are thoughtfully spaced throughout the store, so customers can read labels, investigate packaging and compare items. A menu describes the handful of flowers the store offers, with the most attractive buds displayed under glass.

But what really makes Somewhere worth the visit are the shelves and shelves of baby houseplants. Dozens of philodendron varieties and pothos plants are on display along with palms, ferns and small containers of young aloe, and an adolescent ficus greets customers from the center of the room. For the pothead who could spend equally inordinate amounts of time in the Lowe’s garden center and the neighborhood pot shop, Somewhere is definitely somewhere to check out.

Green Goddess Remedies

5435 SW Taylors Ferry Road, 503-764-9000, greengoddesspdx.com. 10 am-8 pm Monday-Saturday, 10 am-7 pm Sunday.

On an otherwise residential strip of Taylors Ferry, Green Goddess Remedies offers a comfortably familiar dispensary shopping experience. Owned by Sally Bishop, the shop is a respite for the Ashcreek neighborhood and an example of a small-business success story. Rather than stretch profits by opening multiple locations, Bishop doubled down on serving her own community by investing in the store, becoming a beloved fixture rather than a disconnected proprietor.

The result is a homey shop with evident values and seemingly satisfied employees. Even if you don’t personally prioritize community connection over financial gain, it’s hard not to rally behind the leaders who do. Green Goddess Remedies and owner Bishop are great examples, so let’s go buy some of their weed, yeah?