Flying high with Boston's first Black, female-owned dispensary owner
An hour after the Heritage Club’s first sale in Boston
It all started through conversations with her mom. Nike John ( ‘s entrepreneurial streak was made evident when she launched her first real estate brokerage in 2015, but she entered a brand new world when she became Boston’s first Black woman owner of a cannabis dispensary. And she did it after being encouraged to give it a shot by her mother. Not your typical cannabis entrepreneurial story — but nothing about Nike’s journey is typical.
Her flight club-themed cannabis retail outlet, The Heritage Club ( in Boston, is moving away from the traditional budtender model and toward a more customer- and education-focused retail experience with clerks called “flight attendants because they help you safely get on and off your flight,” Nike told Vangst CEO Karson Humiston ( less than an hour after her first sale.
But it hasn’t exactly been a turbulence-free journey. As a social equity applicant in Massachusetts’ burgeoning cannabis industry, Nike tells Karson about the 1,000 steps she had to take just to open her door, and how her three-year journey through a pandemic and supply-chain issues has shaped her perspective on the industry.
Listen to this week’s Proud to Work in Cannabis ( podcast to hear more about how she built a workforce, lessons learned along the way, and advice for others considering opening their own businesses.
Produced by PodConx (
Proud To Work In Cannabis –
Karson Humiston –
Vangst –
Nike John –
Heritage Club – (
Heritage Club on Instagram: heritageclubthc12 (
Produce By PodConx (
Karson Humiston –
Vangst –
Recorded on Squadcast (
Sound Design by Jamie Humiston (mailto:[email protected])