{"id":20038,"date":"2025-10-28T16:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20038\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T16:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:50:10","slug":"nyc-bud-pays-homage-to-grand-central-with-opening-of-new-manhattan-cannabis-dispensary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20038\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC BUD pays homage to Grand Central with opening of new Manhattan cannabis dispensary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/nyc-bud-lead-image-courtesy-of-nyc-bud.jpg\" class=\"crop-center wp-post-image\" alt=\"a side-by-side of NYC Bud's exterior and interior at their Midtown cannabis store\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   title=\"NYC BUD pays homage to Grand Central with opening of new Manhattan cannabis dispensary 1\"\/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>NYC BUD\u2019s new Midtown store pays homage to Grand Central Station.<\/p>\n<p>Photos: NYC BUD\/Midtown<\/p>\n<p>NYC BUD, a licensed cannabis dispensary in Queens, has opened its second location in Midtown, paying homage to its nearby neighbor, Grand Central Station.\n<\/p>\n<p>Founded by Jon Paul Pezzo and Giancarlo Pinto, NYC BUD was created out of the duo\u2019s passion for urban New York City and their background in nightlife, where cannabis finds its way into.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve very much tried to pay homage to New York City urban culture through our design of our stores and our way of delivering our services and delivery. We make the product very accessible to people who want to visit one of our easily centrally located stores,\u201d said Pinto.<\/p>\n<p>NYC BUD opened its first location in Long Island City in 2024, taking on a full subway-themed motif to fully embrace the most New York City thing: the transit system. When they opened the new Manhattan store, located at 39th Street and 9th Avenue, they leaned into the style of Grand Central Station.<\/p>\n<p>The shop features a replica of Grand Central\u2019s constellation ceiling, a central \u201cinformation booth\u201d that doubles as a pick-up counter styled like a departure board, an ATM designed as a Metro-North ticket machine, and a rooftop where customers can consume.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amny.com\/?attachment_id=137806771\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-137806771 nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-137806771\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/dELYwdv.jpg\" alt=\"A replica of Grand Central's ceiling is recreated at the Midtown NYC BUD store.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1365\" title=\"NYC BUD pays homage to Grand Central with opening of new Manhattan cannabis dispensary 2\"  \/><\/a>A replica of Grand Central\u2019s ceiling is recreated at the Midtown NYC BUD store.Photo: NYC BUD\/Midtown<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth [stores] are uniquely designed, immersive experiences that allow the cannabis shopper to enter into a world that is designed to make you feel like you\u2019re in iconic New York spaces. But having the opportunity to shop for curated cannabis products with our highly trained and very friendly staff that makes everyone feel welcome and a part of the fabric of New York,\u201d said Pinto.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Like in its Long Island City store, the Midtown NYC BUD store has a curated selection of cannabis products to choose from, including flower, vapes, pre-rolls, edibles, tinctures, topicals, and more. The budtenders on staff are available to help customers shop, or you can order through one of the store\u2019s kiosks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce the order is in, we have screens, which look like the screens you find either at the ticket counter at Grand Central or when you\u2019re waiting for your train stops on a subway, and it cleverly places your name into the screen and shows it when it\u2019s ready so you can continue to have your shopping experience,\u201d said Pinto. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to feel rushed when you put your order in. We made it very user-friendly and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amny.com\/?attachment_id=137806772\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-137806772 nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-137806772\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/a5Uz5NJ.jpg\" alt=\"NYC BUD's new Midtown store pays homage to Grand Central Station.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1365\" title=\"NYC BUD pays homage to Grand Central with opening of new Manhattan cannabis dispensary 3\"  \/><\/a>NYC BUD\u2019s new Midtown store pays homage to Grand Central Station.Photo: NYC BUD\/Midtown<\/p>\n<p>So far, the new Manhattan store has had a very positive response from customers and the neighborhood. Pinto says that as time goes on, the store will further cement itself as a community fixture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe try to give a platform to local artists, whether they be musicians or regular artists or street artists, and we allow them to sell their art in our space and collaborate with us on projects,\u201d said Pinto. \u201cWe have livestream and live events happening in the store, and we put those on the internet to help support the local artists in our community, whether it be musical or painting or street art, it could also be comedians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pinto added, \u201cWhatever we can showcase as far as talent that many New Yorkers possess and we just try to make that part of our store. It\u2019s just like when you go to the subway, you don\u2019t know when you\u2019re gonna find a very talented person singing, singing on the subway platform or in Grand Central. It makes it part of what it means to be in New York, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NYC BUD\u2019s new Midtown store is located at 405 W 39th St. For more information about NYC BUD, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/nycbud.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">nycbud.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NYC BUD\u2019s new Midtown store pays homage to Grand Central Station. Photos: NYC BUD\/Midtown NYC BUD, a licensed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8979,13652,360,9,24,56,63,65,64,13653],"class_list":["post-20038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-cannabis","tag-cannabis-store","tag-midtown","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nyc-bud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}