Hi there, and welcome to The Dealers Diary - my musings on the cannabis industry in California, New York and Washington, and building Halara.

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In today's entry: Hall of Flowers NYC | the best pizza in New York | what ECCO actually tests

Hey Dealers,

I'm writing this one fast before I head back to Pier 36. Yesterday was day one of Hall of Flowers NYC with our friends at High 5's, and it was so packed I practically lost my voice talking with the line of stores. Today is the big budtender day, so everybody who works behind a counter gets to come grab samples. Seriously, if you're reading this, come on by before they're gone!

Truly this was the easiest show we've done in a while. (To be fair, it's been a packed trade show season these last two months, so it's starting to feel routine.) Revelry was a lot of fun too, but this one was just chill, and it ran 10 to 5, which, thank God it wasn't 10 to 6. They've tried that in the past and that last hour always gets to be too much.

The big spin wheel came back, and if your shop didn't carry us yet you got to spin it for a first order discount. We signed five or six shops right there on the spot! We've also got some really good conversations going with a few bigger store chains, and the owner of our biggest store in New York stopped by and loved the new stuff, which was lovely to see.

My favorite story from yesterday: a store owner dragged another store owner over to our table and told him he had to pick us up, “because my daughter and all her friends exclusively vape Halara now. They used to do Jetty and now they won't touch the stuff.” (I'm not grinning about this praise, you are!) The guy immediately grabbed a sample, tried the Apricot Octane, and said he'd add us to their menu next week.

So if you've got a local shop in New York, hit them up and ask for us, please!

It was also just a lot of friends, West Coast ones and now New York ones too. Shout out to Farid, the CEO of Velvet, who stopped by to say hi, plus Monty and Amber and a whole host of other friends.

After the show, me and Vinay from High 5's went down to Little Italy to Ceres Pizza, and I shit you not, this is the best pizza I have ever found in New York. This is my second time going here. I was here to grab pizza the last time that we had a trade show, and I just had to come back. They put a little metal grate under the pie on the platter so the crust never gets soggy. We got the 'nduja with burrata and aged balsamic and I'm still getting chills just writing about it.

It's over on Mott Street. For those who don't know, I run a restaurant recs Google Maps list with a few friends, and this one is way up there. Check it out here.

Then we ended up in the West Village, and I'm getting very jealous of the people who live there because the food scene is incredible. We finished at a bar that looked just like the cantina on Tatooine. It wasn't fully Star Wars, it just looked like it, and it was wonderful. We stayed out a little later than we should have.

If you're in New York and you work in a shop, come see us today. It's Nick, me and the whole High 5's crew!

Onwards and upwards,

-Malcolm

Boyd wrote: "As of my last visit they had not even heard of your products... I look forward to trying some of your strains (even if I ultimately have to drive to Buffalo to get access)."

Boyd, this is exactly the kind of shop we want to be in. I'm passing your shop's name to our New York team so somebody can go knock on that door. And for everybody else, asking your budtender for Halara by name really does help.

Got a question? Hit reply. I read every one and answer the best one here.

This cornbread is incredible. Try adding a little sage and some jalapeños to it!

Got a friend who works at a shop in New York? Send them this, we're at Pier 36 until 5.

P.S. These two are a lot chiller than my usual picks. I like listening to them when I'm working in the mornings, very coffee house.