Ember Gardens Celebrates Opening With Block Party

ORLEANS – The scene in the parking lot behind Ember Gardens last weekend had all the elements for a party. Live music, food and ice cream trucks, games and tents filled the space in celebration of the recent opening of the town’s second recreational marijuana dispensary.

After six years of planning, Ember Gardens opened its doors at 41 Route 6A just after the Fourth of July holiday. The dispensary offers a broad menu of flower, vapes, edibles and concentrates available for purchase both in-store and online.

On Aug. 24, the dispensary held a “Reggae on 6A” end of summer block party with live music courtesy of the Sensi Allstars Reggae/Funk Band. There was also food courtesy of Dancing Spoons, ice cream from Perry’s Last Stand, a cornhole station, an art demonstration and appearances by a number of pop up vendors.

“We think this is a bit of a sneak preview, a warm up,” said Shane Hyde, the dispensary’s chief financial officer. “Next summer, we really want to be getting into it, starting from the beginning of the season. But it was good to get open and finally show Orleans what we’re all about.”

Hyde said he and his partners, Desmond Hyde and Dan Gillian, started planning for Ember Gardens in 2018. In 2021, Ember Gardens was one of two businesses to earn a license from the town to sell recreational marijuana alongside Seaside Cannabis Co., which opened its doors in December on Lots Hollow Road.

But the road to opening wasn’t without its hurdles. Shortly after the select board voted to enter into host community agreements with Ember Gardens and Seaside in June 2021, another business that had applied for a license, B/well Holdings, filed an injunction to halt the process, claiming that the board erred in its own process when it passed the business over in favor of the others. The injunction was later dismissed in Barnstable Superior Court, as was a second injunction filed against the town by a fourth applicant, Dune Wellness.

B/well then filed suit against the town over the matter, but that suit was later dismissed.

“It was a good journey, though,” Hyde said. “We enjoyed working with the town. Though there were a lot of steps, they were very open to it and conducive to moving the process along.”

The journey toward opening also involved construction of the new 2,277-square-foot dispensary, which includes space for 16 vehicles to park outside as well as an area for outdoor seating.

The Orleans location is the first of three Ember Gardens has in the pipeline, including sites in New Bedford and on Newbury Street in Boston. Hyde said there are also plans for the company to open up a growing facility and manufacturing lab in the future. But for right now, he said the company is happy to be open on the Cape.

“We like to joke to ourselves…that we had a long journey to the start of a new journey,” Hyde said. “And now we’re open for business and we’re starting a new one, which is attracting people down here and showing people we have the best the Cape has to offer.”

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com