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BUCHANAN – Walking into Pinnacle Emporium, 221 E. Front St., Buchanan, patients and customers will step into both a special and nostalgic environment. Whether they enter through the front door or back entrance, customers will be met with walls full of memorabilia from yesteryear.

Beginning Wednesday, Pinnacle Emporium, Buchanan’s latest medical and adult-use dispensary, will host its soft-opening as the location ramps up to its grand opening on Friday.

A long hallway with upcycled washing machine doors fashioned into porthole windows are opposite a large street art-style mural themed with cannabis culture icons from the Beastie Boys to Wu-Tang Clan and The Beatles, with everything in between along the way leading to the queen bee of “Pinnacle Emporium” at the end. Each entrance leads to a front desk, fashioned from a 1963 Chevy truck front end.

“We have vintage memorabilia from the Civil Rights movement to the ‘Say no to drugs’ campaign, from feeling like you’re hiding in the basement to coming upstairs,” said co-owner Michael Silver. “We’re giving people an experience they’ll want to have over and over again.”

Silver and co-founder Erik Watkins have assembled a leadership team within Pinnacle Emporium that they say includes friends who are practically family. Silver and his wife, Jodie, are both chiropractors who felt the field naturally crossed over with the marijuana space.

“We want to connect and make people feel comfortable. People are still nervous,” Jodie said of the dispensary’s décor and aim to lessen the stigma surrounding marijuana.

Silver has his friend of more than 40 years, Danny “Potzy” Potenza, on board as the company’s creative director.

“I put [ideas] on paper, and Potzy brings it to life,” Silver said.

Team members agree their dynamic approaches bring agility and amiability to the company.

“We’re curated,” Potenza said.

As those entering the dispensary are permitted to the salesroom, the medical marijuana product is featured first, with an adult-use product counter right around the corner from it.

The sales room has exposed brick and original architecture featured, along with a “bud bar” built featuring driftwood in the design. The “bud bar” will feature around 30 different strains of marijuana flower in clear boxes that allow consumers to take a look at the plant, with a magnifying panel built-in and a special mechanism on the side, which allows interested parties to smell the bud before buying.

Both of the Silvers were excited to work with brands they had already curated for the dispensary, as well as other producers local to the southwest Michigan area.
The Buchanan location is the third and newest in the Pinnacle Emporium brand. The first two are located in Morenci and Addison-Devils Lake, Michigan. Michael Silver said they plan to have six or seven dispensaries in Michigan open by summer.

Silver said the company took notice of Buchanan due to its location near the southern state border, the opportunities available and the welcoming nature of the city.

“The town has the right vibe,” Potenza said.
Silver said Buchanan being voted Reader’s Digests’ “Nicest Place in America” helped too.

Pinnacle Emporium will host its official grand opening on Friday. The location will be open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

More information may be found at Pinnacle Emporium’s Facebook page and website, PinnacleCanna.com.