Do You Take Your Coffee With CBD? Mpls. Business Gets Creative To Serve Controversial Extract

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Cosmic Bean Dispensary, a coffee shop that sells the hemp extract CBD, opened Friday in Minneapolis.

This new Dinkytown business got creative to get around the state food code. The coffee shop had people stopping in for a cup of joe on opening day.

"I like coffee. I like CBD. I've been interested in the building for a while," customer Zach Greer said.

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This weekend they are just serving up coffee, but customers were curious.

"It's coffee so it's caffeinated, but also the CBD relaxes you, so it sounds really nice around finals time," customer Jessica Malec said.

Wally Sakallah is the owner behind the concept.

"I decided to open Cosmic Bean Dispensary to provide an option for people who like to experience the CBD products without the smoking,"Sakallah said.

It took him a while to figure out how to get the coffee and the CBD to the customer. CBD is not a FDA-approved additive, meaning employees can't add it to the coffee.

"We decided to leave it up to the customer. Customers can make their own decision if they want to add CBD on their coffee or food or anything they want to consume, or not," Sakallah said.

For example, a mocha comes in a cup, the CBD booster in a dropper. If you order the Turkish coffee, the customer combines the two. That's allowed per the Minneapolis Health Department.

"The food code does not dictate what you buy and put in your food," said Dan Huff, the city's environmental health director.

What may be challenged is the store's idea for selling packaged treats containing CBD.

"Whoever is inspecting that food business would say, 'Hey, you have an unapproved food additive in your food,' and would order it to be removed," Huff said.

Sakallah knows this will be trial and error in the beginning.

"They're going to tell me this is wrong, that's the right way. They don't have a book to tell you how to sell CBD, so hopefully we're going to be able to draft the book together," Sakallah said.

The coffee shop is doing a soft opening through the weekend. It starts selling CBD on Monday.