Nuggets spoke with Sasha and Randy Beuc about their current business and their future earlier this week. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you get into the cannabis business?
Randy: I grew up in St. Paul, I moved to Savage and went to Prior Lake High School. We started dating our sophomore year, we went to college together in Mankato. We moved back, started working, having a family. Her degree was in business, mine was in engineering. I’d been working for various technical companies doing engineering for the last 15 years or so. We decided that wasn’t going to work anymore. I think the post-COVID world made everything about the office scene different, not in a great way. I’m still dealing with a lot of anxiety myself, especially pertaining to going into the office and trying to do that world again. We learned the hard way that tomorrow could be different from today, and it could be entirely out of your control. We just wanted to seize the moment and do something for ourselves for once.
Sasha: I was doing accounting before this. A lot of what I do here is behind the scenes. I’ll obviously fill in up front when we need it, but I keep the wheels rolling in the back of the house.
Tell me about this space.
Randy: My latest role has been in regulatory compliance. So I was really familiar with reading through regulations and figuring out what will work best. Right away, when I was reading through [the bill], I singled out the microbusiness license as a pretty unique opportunity for small businesses to have a real place in this world. The reason why is because it allows you to vertically integrate when other, larger companies cannot. This building is an old U.S. Post Office. It’s about 6,000 square feet. About 1,000 of it is our retail space, about 5,000 is back of the house, operations-type stuff. Which happens to fit into that microbusiness license category very well. We signed the lease Aug. 1. We really love that it can be in Prior Lake, because this is our home. This is where we live, where we went to school, where our kids go to school. All of this stays local. We intend for the vast majority of our products to be produced right here in this building. We don’t white-label any of our edibles. We make all of it from scratch ourselves.
Sasha: We got the keys to the building Aug. 1 and we opened the doors on Aug. 23. It was great finding a landlord that was receptive to the business.
Most entrepreneurs would probably try to have a retail store, or sell grow equipment or make edibles. You’re doing all of these things. How is that working out for you?
Randy: It’s very stressful.
Sasha: It’s chaotic. But we’ve got a great team of employees. We all operate so well together.
How many employees do you have?
Randy. We have three besides us.
How has the reception been from the community for a business like this, being in the outer-ring suburbs?
Randy: I think you see and hear a lot of negative things from some very outspoken people on both sides. The vast majority of people are not like that. They’re not angry about us being here. They’re not frustrated about the scene. This is just another tax-paying business that is occupying a business that was vacant – and it’s far less likely to cause trouble now than it was when it was vacant. The reception has been great.
Sasha: A lot of people say that they’re happy we’re in town, that we’re so close.
When licenses become available, you say you’re going to go for a microbusiness license. What are your plans for the future?
Randy: We have a 50- by 60-foot grow space, which is 3,000 square feet. We’ll be quite a bit under the 5,000-square-foot allocation. We plan to offer some unique strains and other things that maybe wouldn’t sell at a commercial scale but we can do it because we’re a lot smaller. We have our kitchen and a small processing room in the back.
Have you grown before?
Yeah, I’m not bashful about the fact that I’ve been growing.
In addition to growing flower, you want to make concentrates?
Randy: Yeah, I don’t expect to ever have solvent extraction on site here because I don’t want to handle combustible gasses. But for solventless, it’s literally water. We expect to do that here.
What’s your preferred method of consuming cannabis?
Randy: I like to smoke concentrates. I use an e-rig sometimes, but I like to take dabs. I think dabs, especially rosin dabs, have a very clear, functional high. It really helps me clear that anxiety noise.
Sasha: I prefer my vape pen. It’s just easier for me to control, and I like the feeling of it.
You won a Legacy Cup award for most innovative product with your Tasty Horchata Crispies. How did those come about?
Randy: They are dangerously good. Our assistant manager, Erica [Avalos] was working at Mazopiya, the grocery store in the [Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community]. She was making their take and bake or lunch options, that kind of stuff. She’s a chef. She said, I just want to make edibles. She made this rice krispie treat so we submitted it and it won. It’s absolutely delicious. They’re made from scratch, down to the crispies.
Sasha: That was just a month after we opened, we submitted those to the Legacy Cup and won the big trophy.
And you make alcohol-free THC wine also?
Randy: I’m not a winemaker. I’m not going to pretend I’m literally squishing the grapes myself. It’s a nonalcoholic white-label wine. I figured out how to infuse it and make it still taste good. That’s my part of the process.
Have you had any issues as parents working in the cannabis industry?
Sasha: We’re very involved in our kids’ lives. We’re very straightforward with them that this is a legal product now. People talk to their kids about alcohol, this is kind of along those lines. It’s for adults. Some adults use it for recreation, some adults use it for medicine. We want them to know what it is. And we want them to know that it’s not for them until they’re adults.
It’s kind of funny because people ask us what we do. We tell them we own the cannabis store in town. You never know how people are going to receive that. It’s surprising how many people are coming out of the woodwork like, “Oh yeah? Well what do you sell? I’m interested.”
Randy: I hate that this is even a question. I feel like the only way to break the stigma is just to live as though there is no stigma. That’s how I’ve tried to live.
