BUCKHANNON – The seed-to-sale, woman-owned, and mountain-grown hemp enterprise, Moon Flower, plans to become the newest addition to Buckhannon’s Main Street this February.
Co-owners of Moon Flower Hemp, sisters Riley and Macie Queen, acquired 46 East Main Street, the building that formerly housed Jesterline, in the middle of 2021 to house the entire Moon Flower operation.
“We built Moon Flower inside of the warehouse, and we decided it was time to open our first brick-and-mortar store,” Riley Queen told My Buckhannon in December. “We also wanted to have a bigger space because we’re continuously expanding our product line, our team and everything that we offer. We figured if we could find a spot on Main Street, we could have retail and our operation intertwined with each other.”
Riley Queen said combining both sides of the business – the growing and processing operation with a retail storefront – will enable Moon Flower to expand education on their CBD products. CBD, short for cannabidiol, is derived from hemp, a close relative of the marijuana plant; however, it does not cause a ‘high’ in and of itself, although it’s a key component in medical marijuana.
“I think having an in-person space was really important for us because while we really like operating online, we felt that education was a huge part of Moon Flower, and it will be easier to talk to people face-to-face and really get across the different information they might need to figure out what products work best for them,” Riley Queen said. “It’s going to be nice to be able to give those in-person consultations rather than just online.”
Moon Flower produces and sells CBD and Delta-8 products, which come in a variety of forms.
“As far as edibles go, we have gummies, cereal bars, hard candies, suckers, a whole tincture line, tea and honey,” Macie Queen said. “We just released our Moon Vapes which have different cannabinoid combinations to produce certain effects, which is currently our best seller; we have our whole flower line, which is directly from our farm; we do lots of pet products that people love, including butter, tinctures, different balms; and we have a whole topical line of warming gels. We do a little bit of everything.”
The new location’s retail space is currently under construction, but all the other rooms are already operational.
“We have our shipping facility, our gummy room, lab, kitchen and then our grow room and retail space are being constructed right now,” Riley Queen said. “I think our grow room is going to be super unique and an amazing opportunity for education. I think a lot of people will be curious about that and the opportunity to see the plants.”
The retail space will be outfitted with an edibles bar.
“Our retail space is going to have a full edibles bar, and we’re going to have our teas on tap,” Riley Queen added. “Of course, we’ll sell our entire product line there as well, and we have a stage out front that we’re really excited to utilize; we’re going to do a lot of community events and things to get people out, having a good time.”
Macie Queen emphasized the importance of offering a variety of delivery systems for CBD and its ever-expanding benefits.
“It’s nice to be able to offer a wide variety of things to people because everybody’s using cannabis for a different reason, and that’s one of the biggest things we realized is you can have somebody who uses our products for insomnia, but their partner is using it purely for, let’s say, fun,” Macie Queen said. “We have the smokeable line, but a lot of people don’t prefer to smoke, so that’s why our edible line is so in-depth.”
“We have so many options and dosages,” she said. “We have low-dose gummies for beginners, and then extremely high-dose gummies for people who are really experienced with cannabis.”
The sisters started to develop Moon Flower as a business when they were students at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
“My parents got into producing bulk CBD oil, and then we decided we wanted our own little segment of retail and our retail segment is the thing that flourished out of everything,” Riley Queen said. “When we were at Wesleyan, I was a graphic design major, so I was chomping at the bit to be able to design a product line, and a brand like this has been my dream design project.”
Macie Queen said she and Riley share a passion for their community.
“Riley and I are both very passionate about Buckhannon itself,” she said. “We were born and raised here, and we’ve been able to see the progression of Main Street over the years, so I think being able to offer this in this space will be a really cool change for people around here.”
Macie Queen said she and her sister have experienced the benefits of CBD firsthand, so it inspired them to provide these options to the community.
“Riley and I have had anxiety problems our whole lives, but after being on years of medication and then finding cannabis together, we shared a mutual respect for the relief we received from cannabis, and we wanted to share it with people,” Macie Queen said. “A lot of people will see cannabis and just think, ‘you’re just getting stoned, it’s a just-for-fun type of thing,’ but, people don’t realize THC and CBD can be used medicinally in so many ways. We combined those mutual passions we had, and Moon Flower happened.”
They are aiming to open the new location in the first week of February.
“We don’t want to open until we know everything’s done the way we want to do it,” Riley Queen said. “We’re thinking January is going to be our absolute crunch month — we’re going to get all those last things ironed out – and then February, we’ll be ready, and our grand opening event is going to be awesome.”
Moon Flower’s products will still be sold in other retail locations and online, but their Moon Flower storefront will offer exclusive products, Riley Queen said.
“There will be products that are exclusive to our space, like the tea on tap, and we will probably come out with products that we just carry here, but as far as the product line that we sell online and to the rest of our retailers [wholesale], it will still be open to anybody,” she said.
