Popular SF Juice Shop Opens CBD-Focused Wellness Store

If the opening of CBD-focused market Sidewalk Wellness is any indication, then CBD is the next juice. The store, which sells chocolates, tinctures, and oils made with hemp-derived cannabidiol, or CBD, is a new venture from Sidewalk Juice, a popular juice bar mini-chain that opened in the Mission in 2006.

Now it’s 2019, and Sidewalk Juice proprietors Jason Nazzal and Gus Daibis (who run three more locations on 24th Street and down the Peninsula) have expanded to the next frontier in health trends. A few blocks from the original juice store, at 3186 21st street, Sidewalk Wellness opened last Saturday. So far, best sellers at the new market include brightly-colored CBD gummies in a variety of flavors and shapes manufactured by the company JustCBD.

All the products in the small, clean market contain CBD derived from hemp, which was legalized by congress last year. CBD can also be derived from marijuana — it’s another active compound in cannabis along with THC, but unlike THC it doesn’t gets users stoned.

Caleb Pershan

Instead, CBD just offers anti-inflammatory health benefits that aren’t well researched. Still, it’s taken off as a panacea for pain, and the sheer variety of items at Sidewalk Wellness — bath bombs, foot scrubs, CBD coffee, and Sidewalk’s own line of CBD dark chocolate raisins — attests to the product’s sudden ubiquity.

Over time, says Daibis, “what we plan to do is merge the juice and the CBD together, where you can get a blueberry almond smoothie or a green energy juice and have CBD in it. We really feel like that’s the future.”

But it’s not the present just yet. “We haven’t proceeded to do that, so we decided to open a retail store to keep the two separate, for now.”

Unlike a cannabis club, at wich customers are usually subjected to a sign in process, Sidewalk Wellness is just a typical store: Walk in, peruse, and purchase. While it can’t sell any of the items pot shops can — CBD derived from cannabis, or CBD with any THC — the advantage is that it’s less intimidating. And it can sell products pot shops can’t. Since they’re not allowed to sell non-marijuana products, to get your CBD coffee fix, you’ll have to come to Sidewalk Wellness.