When Matt Pruette decided to open a retail cannabis business, his concept was simple: he didn’t want it to look like a dispensary or a smoke shop. He wanted an atmosphere that was homey, welcoming, comfortable and open. With taste and imagination, he transformed a former lawnmower shop into a unique retail environment where the vibe is like a North Woods Mountain resort - created with ledgestone, knotty pine and a decorative ceiling by Ceilume.
Microgrown Market in Aston, Pennsylvania – a woodsy suburb 20 miles southwest of Philadelphia – is an example of the maxim, “You can’t tell a book by its cover.” On the outside, it’s a utilitarian structure, a box of green metal panels with a white garage door. On the inside, it’s a different place altogether, walls of knotty pine and ledgestone, wood floors, glass shelves and a soft brown decorative ceiling. Owner Matt Pruette describes the style as “dispensary shakes hands with ski lodge.”
Pruette had 38 years in the lawnmower business when his wife got laid off from her job and he decided he wanted to do something new. Hemp growing had just been legalized in Pennsylvania, and they decided to farm a small crop, about 50 plants. Ultimately, they turned part of the lawnmower shop into a small retail storefront to sell legal cannabis products such as CBD. A portion of the building was partitioned off with drywall and a suspended ceiling grid.
Pruette designed everything himself, both the physical store and the product line of the Microgrown Farm brand. He knew that the shopping experience could be the element that made his business distinctive.
“What I was aiming for,” Pruette recalls. “Was anything that didn’t look like a dispensary or a smoke shop. No glass, no chrome, no counters with everything hidden behind it. No walls of boxes. There’s no reason for it to be chrome-y, glass-y and cold.”
The environment was created from the ground up. The plain concrete floors are covered in wood plank with strongly contrasting grain. The walls feature several materials in different parts of the store: knotty pine wall paneling, door trims and window trims, tree-trunk posts, ledgestone walls and column-cover, as well as walls in plain warm white and dark green. Much of the shelving is glass, all open and accessible. Display tables include more oak and pine.
The decorative ceiling is a contrast, more orderly and less rustic. It is a standard two by two suspended grid ceiling filled with Ceilume thermoformed tiles, the Stratford style in the color Latte. Stratford is a pattern of concentric squares with moderate relief-depth, reminiscent of classic coffered ceilings. The contrasting ceiling suggests that everything about this design is intentional.
The ceiling choice was “a foregone conclusion,” says Pruette. He found Ceilume tiles years ago and used them in his home basement. He is very enthusiastic about the product’s ease of installation and use, as well as its appearance.
Throughout the store are touches that give the place a personal, almost handmade feel. The countertop and some display shelves are white oak with bark still attached along its edges, planked from a tree that fell next to Pruette’s home years ago. Near the store entry is a small fountain with two sculpted bears frolicking on it.
The overall result clears the high bar that Pruette set: Microgrown Market is a very comfortable place to shop. Pruette’s store has been so successful that they have had to expand it twice since opening, spreading into more and more of the old mower shop. The availability of THCa flower has made the business in unregulated cannabis products soar, but Pruette credits the appearance and open, no-hassle vibe with a big measure of his success.
