From the Bronx to Brown Budda.
“I grew up in the Bronx. My mother’s a type two diabetic.”
Marquis Hayes’s entry into cannabis was personal. He recalls waking up to medical emergencies at home–moments that forced responsibility early.
“I would usually wake up to a mom that had a sugar coma, and I would have to pry her mouth open with a spoon and put orange juice in it, so she wouldn’t have a stroke or die.”
The experience pushed him to study what food and plant-based chemistry could actually do inside the body. Cannabis came later, but the foundation–respect for the plant and for precision–was built in those early mornings.
Before founding Brown Budda–the first fully licensed dispensary in the Hamptons and the only Black-owned dispensary on Long Island–Hayes built his career in elite kitchens, where he cooked for heads of state and global figures.
The discipline of fine dining never left him. In cannabis, he talks about sourcing with the same seriousness.
“I’m going to the farm. I’m meeting the farmer, and I want to learn about this carrot before I bring it back to the store and put it on a plate and introduce it to the customers.”
Replace carrot with cannabis, and the philosophy holds.
Brown Budda was never meant to be just another retail counter.
Images courtesy of Marquis Hayes
The Cost of Being Early
Hayes scored near the top of New York’s Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) program, positioning him as one of the early faces of the state’s social equity rollout. But early, in a new regulatory system, often means absorbing friction first.
For nearly 17 months, Brown Budda sat in permitting limbo. Hayes said he was burning roughly $60,000 a month during …
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Author: Gregory Frye / High Times
