How many cannabis merchants does one small town need? New Paltz is in the process of finding out. Its first, Big Gas Dispensary, opened in April 2024 and was an immediate hit. Now it has a new outlet, called the Weedery, located in the former Groovy Blueberry building on Water Street — but it’s created on a different sort of model: Rather than selling a wide variety of cannabis products from many different suppliers throughout the state, it will offer only its own lines, locally made. And once the adjacent “Amsterdam-style coffeeshop” is up and running, you’ll be able to imbibe right on the premises.
New York State’s Office of Cannabis Management is licensing businesses to sell the formerly illegal weed in diverse ways, according to different models. Most licensed dealers will be retail dispensaries like Big Gas, offering products to take home only. But a limited number will be awarded a “microbusiness” license and allowed to function with a “vertical integration” structure — “like a farm brewery or cidery,” according to Lisa Barone, who owns the Weedery in partnership with her husband Mike Nelson and their distribution and sales manager Tyler Hefferon. “We can operate from seed to sale. We can cultivate, infuse our own products, distribute and sell,” including at their on-site “consumption lounge.”
Barone and Nelson come to this nose-to-tail, farm-to-table approach via parallel careers in the culinary field. Nelson was born in Hawaii, grew up in Colorado and came to New York to attend the Culinary Institute of America. In the course of learning to be a chef, he experimented privately with infusing edibles with cannabis, with the goal of developing recipes that standardize dosage in quest of predictable outcomes. Entering the restaurant business in New York City after completing his courses at the CIA, he met Barone while both were working at a place called Celsius. They married in 2020, not long after founding a company together called the Herbal Confectionary to manufacture a line of cannabis-infused gummies.
For her part, Barone grew up on Long Island in a family with a farming heritage. From the age of 18 she too trained in the culinary arts, eventually becoming executive chef at Dizzy’s Jazz Club in Columbus Circle and a catering company called Great Performances. She always had a strong interest in keeping food healthy, sustainable and locally sourced; and in 2021, when two family members with a farm in Orange County wanted to create a succession plan so they could retire, she and Nelson took up the challenge. Barone took a crash course through Cornell University’s Small Farms Program, and both set to learning agriculture hands-on. “We’re there to steward it, make it beautiful and keep it farmland,” she says.
While not officially certified organic, Windfall Farms is a 143-acre spread of prime farmland where specialty crops are grown without the use of any pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers. Its previous owners, siblings Morse and Kathi Pitts, are Barone’s cousins. Morse was one of the founding members of the Union Square Greenmarket, and he was active for decades in the Farmer and Community Advisory Committee of GrowNYC. To keep Windfall Farms economically viable while preserving the land and soil, in 2016 Morse and Kathi contracted with the Orange County Land Trust and Scenic Hudson to place a 100-year agricultural easement on most of the property.
Windfall Farms became known as a source for artisan microgreens and every variety of fancy root vegetable imaginable, but also got into cannabis production in 1990, well before it was legal. In today’s parlance, that, along with Herbal Confectionary’s line of infused edibles, makes Barone and Nelson’s operation a “legacy” cannabis business. When it finally became possible to apply for licensing, they already had a solid, tested structure in place for production and distribution. All they needed was a retail outlet within a certain radius of Windfall Farms, and they would become eligible for the “microbusiness” licensing category. “We wanted to make it a model that supports the small farmer,” says Barone.
The three partners took a lease on the former Groovy Blueberry building well before their license application made it all the way through the long, convoluted approval process, but they already had an ample supply of agricultural products that were legal to sell. They opened the Windfall Farms Community Market in a room on the north end of the building last spring, and it’s now the go-to spot in New Paltz for gourmet baby potatoes in every color and lush, gorgeous microgreens, harvested daily and well-cleaned. If you’re an arugula fan, but have found yourself frustrated with grocery-store packaging that saddles you with more of the spicy greens than your family can eat up before it goes slimy, this little market is the place where you can buy however much you want in bulk. You can also find locally raised free-range meats, kim chi and cheeses from “the smallest cheesemaker in New York State,” Two Stones Farm.
On November 29, the dispensary section of the Weedery opened to the public at the south end of the building. It’s a small space, without much on display, since most of the cannabis products are locked up in a vault until you place your order. Their own crop of flower is expected to be cured, trimmed and in the shop by January; in the meantime, they’re carrying the SuperNaturals brand, also produced in Orange County using “growing principles consistent with our own.” Newly launched is their Chef Pantry line of oils, honeys, jams, jellies and other condiments for cooking, infused with cannabis and herb blends.
Consistent with what’s allowed under a microbusiness license, the Weedery plans to implement a cannabis products delivery system by spring, with a range from New York City to the Capital District. “We’re going to use a CSA model,” Barone explains. “You get a weekly box, by subscription.”
Closer to home, a big room in the middle section of the building at 3 Water Street is being readied to serve as a members-only consumption lounge attached to the coffeehouse, to be known as Ladybud’s Bakedhouse. It’s already cozily furnished, with an enormous picture window overlooking the Wallkill River and Shawangunk Ridge sunsets, and a small adjacent kitchen is being built to provide fresh treats and beverages. “We hope to have construction done before Christmas,” Barone says, “definitely by January.”
For the present, you can purchase fresh produce in the Windfall Farms Community Market from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and smokables and infused edibles in the Weedery from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. For more information, visit www.theherbalconfectionery.com/about-us.
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