Los Angeles cannabis retailer Green Qween’s award-winning design + earnest mission are fueling rapid expansion
Green Qween opened its Downtown Los Angeles cannabis store in 2023, garnering critical praise for its Art Deco-inspired design and welcoming layout.
When it came time for an encore, co-founders Andrés Rigal and Taylor Bazley reconnected with the design firm Visual Elements (formerly SevenPoint Interiors) to expand their goal of creating a brand with a significant social impact.
“Green Qween is different because of our commitment to social impact and high style,” Bazley says. “This combination has contributed greatly to our success. Our community-led support comes through our partnerships with local grassroots organizations, and much of our style is expressed through our impactful store design.”
The second shop, located in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, opened in November 2024. Visual Elements worked from the outside in to manifest a retail space that matches the Green Qween branding and the context of the community. In simple terms, it’s Green Qween’s celebration of the local culture. And it’s also a chance to iterate on the California brand’s award-winning design.
“The aim is to create a space that authentically resonates with the Sherman Oaks community, blending continuity with Green Qween’s brand ethos,” says Visual Elements Creative Director Desmond Chan.
Building on Excellence
Rigal and Bazley, whose pre-cannabis careers were in nightlife and city government, respectively, originally wanted to build a cannabis store that not only reflected the LGBTQ+ community, but also embraced its fluid, avant-garde, youthful side.
They reached out to a multitude of designers for the project, before selecting SevenPoint Interiors, a cannabis-focused subdivision of Visual Elements.
“It was the best decision we could’ve made,” Rigal says. “I had this chaotic symphony of color and ideas, and they were able to synthesize everything I threw at them into something that makes sense.”
Green Qween’s first store was partly inspired by the building’s Art Deco architecture, with a splash of South Beach, Florida, for color, Rigal says. The store won two Clio awards and earned the attention of the New York Times and the Guardian, among other media outlets.
“Our customers mention how much the attractive, yet approachable, environment keeps them coming back,” Bazley says.
Although Green Qween could have hired another firm to replicate the design at its Sherman Oaks location, Rigal says that would have been a mistake.
“The first time we worked together, it was incredible,” Rigal says. “And Sherman Oaks is even better.”
He compares the partnership to a musical band.
“Apart we’re just playing guitar, but you put it together and you’re making music,” Rigal says. “And we’ve been really making great music together.”
For the Sherman Oaks store, Visual Elements took inspiration from the neighborhood’s longstanding mid-century bodegas and blended their traditional charms with sleek, post-modern aesthetics, fluid shapes and a vibrant palette of colors. Those new elements were in addition to the inclusive community design cues from the first store, such as the overhead disco balls and the custom-designed arches and fixtures.
SevenPoint Interiors is now Visual Elements
Scarlet Fire.
When Visual Elements, a design and manufacturer of high-end retail environments, saw the rising need for high-end interior design in the cannabis industry the company decided to create SevenPoint Interiors, as its cannabis branded subdivision in 2017.
SevenPoint Interiors went on to design some of the most visually engaging cannabis retail stores in the world including many that were featured in Marijuana Venture such as Green Qween, Scarlet Fire and Park Social.
Park Social.
Now with cannabis having become a ubiquitous part of North American culture, the Visual Elements team is integrating the SevenPoint Interiors subdivision and bringing all its future cannabis projects under its flagship brand alongside its other prestigious clients such as Coach, Nordstrom, Hoka and many others.
Green Qween.
With Visual Elements, clients will continue working with the same dedicated team and enjoy access to our broader capabilities in design, engineering, and custom manufacturing. This evolution allows the company to streamline its services and leverage all the strengths that come from being part of Visual Elements.
“We are really focused on community, so every neighborhood has its own vibes and nods to that community,” Says Visual Elements head of design Randy Simmen. “It’s not like it’s a franchise approach, where every location is getting the same fixtures. We’re doing it right.”
From the Outside In
It is nearly impossible to miss the massive mural by internationally acclaimed artist Patrick Church that covers the façade of Green Qween’s Sherman Oaks location. Church’s artwork, which also highlights the company’s first store, was chosen to represent Green Qween’s culture and set the tone of the shopping experience.
Church “is such an amazing representative of the new generation of queer and the creativity coming out of our community,” Rigal says. “And at Green Qween, we really want to use every inch of our store to support and represent queer people.”
Inside the store, the streams of colors gliding along the walls and fixtures paint a refreshing and disarming vista for shoppers coming in off the busy street.
“We leaned more into the Cantaloupe and Neo-Mint colors to give a little bit of a retro take on the bodega, more of a neighborhood vibe,” Chan says.
At the center of the room is a massive flower table lined with dozens of sniffer jars above neatly packed rows of live product. And tucked beneath the table are stacks of baskets so customers can shop for cannabis the same way they’d buy groceries at traditional bodegas.
“We’ve got a green basket if you want someone to talk to you, a red basket if you just kind of want to stay on your own,” Rigal says. “It’s all about discovery. We want people to spend as much or as little time in the store as they want, but it’s always on their own terms.”
Hanging above the flower bar is what Rigal calls the “disco ball solar system” playing off the disco ball installed at the first store and expanded into a broader, more glamorous theme.
Visual Elements worked tirelessly to stay true to Green Qween’s roots of supporting LGBTQ+ cannabis brands and clients while fostering an open, safe environment for everyone. The store features a special section dedicated to cannabis brands developed by members of the LGBTQ+ community. Installing this element took special care, because Rigal says he never wanted to beat people over the head with the idea. Green Qween will never have rainbows all over the store, Rigal says, “but there are a lot of queer moments, if you look closely. We have Easter eggs all over our stores.”
Further Expansion
With Green Qween’s Sherman Oaks store now open, Rigal and Bazley are already working with the creative team at Visual Elements to outline details of the brand’s next chapter in West Hollywood.
“In the next location, you’re going to see a lot of lot more of that mint green and millennial pink,” Chan says. “The next location is in the heart of the LGBTQ+ community in West Hollywood, and we really want to stand out. We’re calling it their flagship location, just based on where they’re situated.”
Rigal says he plans on working with Visual Elements indefinitely because Green Qween’s store design is one of the most important and effective ways to communicate the brand.
“We’re planning on opening stores across the United States, and I would love for Visual Elements to be our design partner the whole way through,” Rigal says.
Bazley adds that the majority of Green Qween’s style is expressed through impactful store design, and that’s something that has really driven the store to become a chain.
“Our investors resonate with both our mission and branding, which is another reason why we’re growing so quickly,” Bazley says. “They appreciate Green Qween’s value proposition and want to be part of our expansion.”
From the Inside Out
The owners of Green Qween are doing more than paying homage to their LGBTQ+ community; they are quite literally paying to preserve and protect it. Rigal and Bazley have dedicated a portion of Green Qween’s proceeds to respective LGBTQ+ community centers. They recently donated $20,000 to DTLA Proud, a nonprofit that supports the community in downtown Los Angeles. They have also pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds from the new Sherman Oaks location to Somos Familia Valle, a nonprofit committed to advancing LGBTQ+ racial, social and gender justice in the San Fernando Valley.
Rigal says the company’s initial motto was “queer all year,” because the industry was built on the backs of LGBTQ+ people who were dying during the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the current industry has largely left them behind.
“We’re coming back, reclaiming our space and also using a percentage of our profits to directly support the local LGBTQ+ community,” Rigal says.
Bazley says the actions have resonated with the community.
“It goes to show that great design and actual community impact are both critical elements to long-term brand building,” Bazley says. “We are blown away by the affinity customers have for Green Qween.”