An OG San Francisco Institution Powered by Meadow's Dispensary & Delivery Software
Back in 2014, Vapor Room became Meadow’s very first customer as we began to build cannabis delivery software. Deemed “a Haight Street marijuana mainstay” by SF Weekly, Vapor Room is a historic San Francisco outpost, one of the city’s original medical dispensaries. Hear from their team about why they’ve stuck with Meadow over the years.
Martin Olive
Owner
Allie Felton
Operations Manager
Marcus Jamison
CPA
Vapor Room
Location
The SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco
Opened
2014
In 2004, Vapor Room opened its doors on Haight Street, and quickly became a well-loved grassroots cannabis community, known for their medical compassion program which gave free joints to low-income patients and provided a safe space to consume them under the Compassionate Use Act. After being forced to close the doors of their popular dispensary in 2012 due to a federal crackdown, they battled to re-open their shop for more than seven years. While their retail storefront was closed, Vapor Room used Meadow’s newly developed cannabis delivery software to power their operations. Finally in 2019, they received permits to open a new location in the SoMa neighborhood, and needed a technology partner to power operations at their new stylish cafe-style space.
Meadow has been really integral in helping present Vapor Room 2.0 as a cutting edge, ahead of the curve shop. We have a unique retail environment here. Everything we’re doing here is pushing the status quo of dispensary operations. Meadow definitely helps us look and operate the part.
Martin Olive
Vapor Room Owner
The True Value of a Connected, All-In-One System
When Olive and his team got ready to launch the new version of their dispensary, they did a thorough due diligence review of the available cannabis POS dispensary software systems. As they demo’ed other options, what they found was that no other system had the depth of functionality as Meadow. Other systems require third party plug-ins, APIs, and more subscriptions to other services for additional monthly bills.
“Meadow has this really great comprehensive ideology that encapsulates all of the features we need to run effectively. It’s all aspects of what a dispensary operator needs in a system,” says Olive. “When you have to incorporate all of these other companies to fulfill what Meadow does in one, you’re really just exposing yourself to technical issues and financial expenses that you don’t need to have, whereas Meadow keeps everything all in one. That’s really attractive.”
From POS to delivery, analytics to loyalty programs and text marketing, Meadow is designed as a complete solution to streamline all operations to help dispensary teams understand their business, plan their product mix, identify trends, and optimize dispensary operations, from analytics to loyalty programs and text marketing, storefront POS to cannabis delivery software.
I've used several other cannabis POS retail softwares; Meadow has been my favorite to work with because of the simplicity and the functionality is very straightforward and the report generation is always very fast.
Marcus Jamison
CPA
Explore The Benefits of a Fully Connected Dispensary Software System
As Olive looked at cannabis software options for his new San Francisco dispensary, one of the things that stood out was how few buttons it takes to add products to a basket and finalize transactions. With a lot of friends who run bars and restaurants, he was looking for an equally fast way to navigate through the touch screens in his own business to help quickly move his predominantly sungrown cannabis products.
“One of the best features Meadow has against its competition is how quickly things flow through at the transaction level,” Olive says. “With Meadow, I don’t need to push 15 buttons to get through the system. That was definitely a feature Meadow had above the competition. It keeps the shop moving and makes it quick to help our customers. The user interface is really nice. And it’s shown in my staff: people are moving fast and processing transactions really rapidly. You want that customer experience to be fast.”
Meadow makes my life a lot easier as a manager because the interfaces are clean and that keeps each task really simple.
Allie Felton
Operations Manager
It's Quick to Train Employees
With a streamlined interface, new budtenders and dispensary staff can be easily trained in Meadow workflows. “The check in process is quick and simple, whether you’re returning or are a first time customer,” says Olive. And the system is forgiving—if a staff member makes a mistake, it’s easily adjustable and creates opportunity for training.
photo by Ashleigh Castro
Building a Cannabis Community
Vapor Room is a place where modern cannabis consumers feel at home. The seating area in the front window of this Soma lounge is a place where friends pass joints or load the house bongs and vaporizers with their fellow Bay Area cannabis community. Building community around this plant is a philosophy Vapor Room and Meadow share. “One of the best features Meadow has, aside from being a superior tech platform, is that they they’re a cohesive force in bringing people together from all across the industry,” says Olive. “It’s really impressive that Meadow has community building as a higher level business focus as opposed to just being a standard POS system. There’s a strong tech side, but there’s a whole culture side, too. Meadow is doing really fantastic things in getting people together under one roof. The way Meadow builds community is a point of allegiance for me.”
