Dinner and a joint. It’s a habit for many at home. So why not when you’re out? Irie, a cannabis consumption lounge in West Hollywood, serves upscale California cuisine all while diners consume cannabis. It's the belle of PleasureMed, the 50,000 square foot “pleasure-conscious campus” that's expanded across the parking lot from sex shop Pleasure Chest.
While there are other consumption lounges where food is served, like The Original Cannabis Cafe, which recently reopened after a three-year shutdown, PleasureMed is pushing the experience into a higher end direction, with deluxe aesthetics and food. And, of course, there's the unique proximity of other forms of enjoyment.
There are several ways to begin your indulgent night. You can start by shopping at the dispensary, then you can grab a cocktail at Hind, the al-fresco cocktail lounge (try the Pornstar Slush or a not-too-sweet Pornstar Martini with rum). You might even stop into Pleasure Chest, but when it’s time, everyone heads up to Irie for the main event — dinner.
While it's currently illegal for California dispensaries to serve food — although recently vetoed Assembly Bill 374, would have changed that — Pleasure Med operates legally because the kitchen that services food to Irie is a separate building and business entity. No alcohol is allowed either, which is why Hind is in a separate building, but it's still close enough to allow for the one-stop-shop “campus” concept.
Irie, whose name means "happy and carefree" in Jamaican patois, is bright and beautiful. It looks like the Soho House of weed. The dining room, designed by the studio behind Bavel and Rose Cafe, has plush velvet booths, plants as decor, and a skylight that helps minimize haze.
When I sit down, I’m greeted with a food menu and mocktail list. A “flight attendant" — Irie’s version of a cannabis sommelier — stops by the table with a cannabis menu for us.
There are joints, eighths of flower that can be smoked via bongs Irie provides, and infused sodas like the Not Your Father’s Root Beer we ordered. The flight attendant explains the nuances of each strain before we select an Indica pre-roll. The process is seamless and feels elevated, like selecting wine, but it’s important to note that per federal banking regulations, all cannabis purchases must be made in cash. There’s an ATM in the dispensary, but come prepared to avoid running up and down the stairs or down the street if the dispensary is closed.
The kitchen is helmed by Chef Armando Aguila and Chef Dave Vatran, formerly of once-Michelin-starred Hatchet Hall in Culver City. Glimmers of the Southern twang of Hatchet Hall are present on the menu, which includes a black eyed pea hummus appetizer and a jerk fried quail. The menu is reminiscent of many shared plates restaurants across Los Angeles, with plenty of gluten-free and vegan options across herby salads, pizzas, and veggie sides. The pork belly main out shined the pizzas, both nduja and eggplant and the quail appetizer.
I alternated between sipping the THC root beer and a turmeric and ginger spiced coconut water mocktail called the Yellow Brick Road. For dessert, the persimmon bread pudding was a favorite, though the gooey dark chocolate brownie was a close second. It’s important to note that per regulations, none of the food served contains cannabis.
The service was professional, with the relaxed nature needed to serve a room of (mostly) high people. In the spirit of cannabis, there was no rush to finish the meal and turn over the table. Parties nearby ordered their food slowly and enjoyed each course, lighting up in between and afterwards. The scent and smoke are minimized by the meticulous design of the building, hoping to create a space that is friendly for those who don’t consume.
I toured the space without smoking and found it tolerable, similar to being near someone smoking at an outdoor concert. But even with the high-end design, this is a place to bring friends who enjoy cannabis.
“There's a lot of cross-table talk. I saw some people sharing things and even passing joints around. It's kind of like what you experience at a concert,” said said founder Brian Robinson, of the dining room on a lively night.
As I finished my dinner on a less crowded weeknight, some diners headed to Hind for a cocktail, others got curious and dipped into Pleasure Chest. This is exactly the multi-venue experience Robinson hoped for.
Recreational cannabis has been legal in Los Angeles since November 2016, when California passed Proposition 64, but consumption lounges (which fall under California municipal code 5.70.041) were legalized in West Hollywood three years later in 2019.
When legalization was just a whisper on the street, Robinson, who also owns Pleasure Chest, had his eyes set on opening a dispensary to complement the open-minded ethos of the erotic boutique. He began keeping tabs on his neighbor, a machinist who was nearing retirement. The man disappeared and the building eventually became derelict as the city looked for who held the deed. When the space eventually went up for auction, Robinson was first in line.
“I thought, let's bring in the same energy that we do in Pleasure Chest into this new field because it's building from the ground up as an industry for California,” said Robinson.
The business's West Hollywood location worked in its favor. The small city-within-a-city aspires to be an Amsterdam of sorts, touting a large number of dispensaries-per-capita and attractions for cannabis tourism.
“Their theory for expanding consumption lounges was, I think 85% of the residents in West Hollywood live in a multi-unit building, very few have single family homes. If you smoke cigarettes, and by extension, cannabis, you would be in violation of your lease. So they were saying, well, where in the city can people smoke legally? Because they can't do it in their car, they can't do it on the sidewalks, they can't do it in the parks, and most people can't do it at home,” said Robinson.
His experience running Pleasure Chest, originally founded by his uncle in the East Village in Manhattan in 1971 (opened in West Hollywood in 1975), prepared him for the battle of creating a multi-function cannabis campus. Due to the still-taboo nature of a sex shop, Pleasure Chest has struggled to get approved for business loans.
“This [tricky situation] is what we've done and we know how to do it,” said Robinson, who navigated how to sell cannabis, allow on-site consumption, serve food during consumption, and allow for nearby sales of alcohol in order to create a truly unique space.
PleasureMed had to obtain five different licenses to operate— a dispensary license, a lounge license that permits both smoking and edible cannabis, a delivery license, and an alcohol permit.
Even if PleasureMed is a first-of-its-kind concept, there are other consumption lounges taking advantage of the 2019 law. Nearby, The Artist Tree Studio Dispensary Lounge hosts events like comedy and drag performances and charges a table minimum or cover charge during popular times. While they advertise themselves as a consumption lounge restaurant, food is delivered from one of three neighboring food partners. They also offer elaborate $20 non-alcoholic, THC cocktail offerings, while Irie focuses on zero-cannabis mocktails or pre-bottled cannabis beverages. Woody Harrelson-co-owned The Woods, also in West Hollywood, is a consumption lounge without food. Most similar to Irie’s upscale offerings is, as we mentioned earlier, The Original Cannabis Cafe, formerly Lowell Cafe. The restaurant, which opened in 2019, closed in 2020, and recently reopened in mid November 2023.
This year, Robinson hopes Irie will expand its offerings into brunch and late night. Like every step in the process, there’s some hiccups. Legally, the dispensary and therefore restaurant can’t sell cannabis past 10pm, making it hard to attract late night guests. Robinson is toying with the idea of a program where members have lockers with their own cannabis to use after hours while enjoying a pizza with friends. Like everything about the space, each detail is carefully considered. Rather than be frustrated at restrictions, Robinson is on the hunt for vintage security boxes to use as lockers.
