The Evergreen Market Features Reclaimed Wood From A Local 100-Year-Old Barn, A Wooden Library Bar Station, And 14 Passionate Budtenders For The Ultimate Shopping Experience.
When the owners of The Evergreen Market—Eric Gaston, Jeff Anderson, and Arne Nelson—were dreaming up their Renton, Washington, recreational store, they agreed on one thing: The in-store “experience” had to be great. Gaston, who comes from a wine enthusiast culture, believed the shop had to evoke a connoisseur-like shopping experience. By creating a light, airy, and bucolic atmosphere with repurposed wood from a local 100-year-old barn, Evergreen has set the bar very high for recreational shops in the whole state. What’s the secret? “Much of our success can be attributed to our manager and friend Cass Stewart,” said Gaston. “She owned a successful and celebrated medical dispensary in Seattle called The Apothecary.”
THE EVERGREEN MARKET
FOUNDED IN 2015
409 RAINIER AVE. NORTH
RENTON, WA 98057
425 318-8898
THEEVERGREENMARKET.COM
Company motto
To provide our customers with the finest cannabis products available. We do this by seeking out those growers and producers who have a passion for marijuana and a heartfelt desire to bring the very best flower, edibles, and concentrates to market. If they’re not passionate about what they do, their product won’t be on our shelves.
The Evergreen Market is a showcase for the very best growers, producers, and processors the state of Washington has to offer. We seek out the most innovative, most passionate, and most talented people in this industry and bring their stories, vision and products to our customers.
We work hard to educate our customers on where and how the product we carry is produced; we celebrate this industry and those individuals who embody it; and we strive to elevate the lives of our employees, our business partners, and our customers. These are exciting times and we could not be more thrilled to share our vision and our library of products with you.
The idea
“When we set out create The Evergreen Market, it was important to us that we do so in a way that celebrated the industry, rather than apologize for it,” said Gaston. “We spent the time to vet the industry and see what was out there with early trips to Colorado, and what we found was that many of the shops lacked a component of the ability to explore, to hang out, to deep dive into cannabis. In short, few provided a great ‘shopping experience.’ Our number one goal is to make sure that every person who walks through our doors walks out thinking, ‘That was really interesting, really educational, and…fun.’”
Design
The shop is unique in the industry: The sales floor is broken into separate departments, each of which is devoted to a different product category like edibles, flower, concentrates, or glass and paraphernalia. “This allows our customers to focus on whatever it is that they are interested in looking at,” Gaston said. The centerpiece of the store is the library wall, a 13-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling case housing products from each of the store’s vendors—reached by a wooden ladder. In front of the library is a granite “knowledge bar” where customers are encouraged to pull up a stool and talk to the budtenders. “We frequently host grower days, where our growers and vendors come in to share their narratives and passion for marijuana with our customers,” Gaston said.
Architects
Much of the design was a collaborative effort between the three founding partners, but the store would not be what it is without the work of Brooke McGurdy of KBKM design. “She took her decades of experience as an architect for Starbucks and put it to tremendous use in creating a compelling retail space for cannabis,” said Gaston.
Average customers per day
500
Number of employees
“We are privileged to have fourteen very talented budtenders with plans to add more,” said Gaston.
Budtender requirements
“Just about everything else in life can be faked—except for passion,” Gaston said. “We are looking for people who have a genuine love and passion for cannabis and the ability to communicate that passion to our customers. Again, our job is to make sure that our customers have a great experience, and interacting with people who love what you love is always a great experience.”
Best sellers
“While the industry is growing up before our very eyes, flower is still the number one seller right now,” Gaston said. “But we also have some wonderfully innovative products like handcrafted drink syrups, Altoid-like tins of mints, carbonated sodas, spray joints, etc.”
