An Honest Review of Sunnyside Dispensary Chicago

All we wanted was a joint.

Luckily we brought our own stash, because as it turns out, Sunnyside Dispensary Chicago was no help. Sales in the 2nd month of legal cannabis in Chicago are a lot like the weather. Frozen. And scoring recreational weed takes more than will, free time, and fistfuls of cash.

On a recent frigid Tuesday in Chicago, my buddy Courtney and I visited the one of the city’s 10 newly opened cannabis dispensaries, Cresco’s Sunnyside Dispensary Chicago in Lakeview. We came home with bupkis.

Nada. Nothing.

Our options were limited from the get go. We both live in Hyde Park/Kenwood on the city’s South side. Our closest dispensaries are Mission at 86th & Exchange, 6 miles south, and Sunnyside Dispensary Chicago in Lakeview, 13 miles north.

We were committed to public transit. Walking 1/2 mile from the train station in South Shore with wads of cash didn’t seem like a hot idea.

We opted for Lakeview.

An hour and two trains later, we stood in front of a sad, strange orange storefront with a beefy security dude and a sign outside reading Medical Patients Only.

Medical Patients Only

Say what? Why?

The beefy security guy couldn’t say. Not his job. He was annoyed already, broken down by countless customers asking why there wasn’t any recreational weed and having to double-duty customer service detail he was neither paid nor trained for.

Two Sunnyside employees exiting the store while we stood there looked at us forlornly.

Without a medical card, we weren’t getting weed on this soul-killing, frozen Tuesday. Go to the website, they said. It’s all there.

Apparently you have to check their inventory before going.

Gtk.

Sunnyside Dispensary Chicago is anything but easy.

The Sunnyside website proudly proclaims “We make cannabis shopping simple” which is a lie. They do not. Not at all. Not even close.

The daily inventory is live, they say, and shows what they have in real-time. That might sound easy enough if the site UX didn’t suck.

Their FB page isn’t much help either. It’s crowded with Cresco promos, wellness fluff pieces and pastel IG posts about Valentine Date Nights written by what appears to be a twenty-two year-old.

Listen to the bad reviews.

“this place blows.”

“WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER!”

I got up the next day and checked their website. If you’re looking for pre-rolls, like we were, there were two 1g joints available, priced at $16 and $20. One from Cresco Labs and one from Nature’s Grace, which according to their website is a family owned & operated medical cannabis farm in west central Illinois.

If you’re looking to buy flower, your choice of grower is Cresco. That’s it. There are 3 strains to shop from. They also offered vapes, concentrates edibles, and topicals but since I don’t consume those I didn’t care.

Later in the day, what was shown as available on the website didn’t match their mobile site.