The Best Cannabis Lounge I’ve Ever Been In Was in Nashville – And It Wasn’t Legal

by Jason Piazza on April 28, 2025

I was in Tennessee last week, where cannabis is still fully illegal – no adult use, no medical program.

But as I drove through different cities, I saw dispensary after dispensary. Not gas station head shops, either—real-looking storefronts. Built out. Designed. Branded. Properties that cost money. The kind of locations you’d expect from a licensed operator in a regulated state. Only, none of it was regulated.

On Saturday night, we went out in Nashville. We landed at a busy bar with live music, great food, good cocktails—and a drink menu featuring infused THC and CBD beverages. That’s right. A 10mg Keef Cola, next to the Tito’s and soda.

And it was awesome!

There was a vibe. People were dancing. Laughing. Ordering drinks. Nobody was weird about it. It was normalized, right there in the bar, served like anything else.

It was the best cannabis lounge I’ve ever been in.

And it wasn’t even a cannabis lounge.

Legal Vibes in an Illegal State

This is the weird, wild world of hemp loopholes and farm bill gray zones. The drink I ordered—like so many others on the shelf these days—was infused with Delta-9 THC derived from hemp. Because it was below the 0.3% dry weight threshold, it’s legal under federal law, and apparently under Tennessee’s interpretation of that law, too.

The plant source doesn’t matter to the consumer. But it matters to the state.

That same 10mg beverage would be considered a cannabis product in California and require testing, tracking, labeling, a license to sell, a license to manufacture, and a litany of taxes that would triple the price. The version I bought? No license. No tracking. Just a good product, in a good venue, served to happy customers.

Lounges That Could Learn Something

As someone who has sold cannabis lounges in legal states, I’ve had a front row seat to how hard it’s been for them to succeed. Most of them lose money. Not because people don’t want to consume socially, but because the regulations, costs, and limitations are brutal.

Now to be clear: licensed cannabis lounges can have music, DJs, dancing, and real entertainment. The problem is—they mostly don’t. Whether it’s cost, culture, or lack of vision, most lounges have leaned into cannabis as the main event, not the accessory.

And that’s the miss.

I’ve said this in calls and meetings for years: cannabis lounges should be destination-oriented. There has to be something more than cannabis bringing people in the door. Cannabis should be secondary—an enhancement to a comedy show, a live music venue, a night club, a supper club, a strip club, a party space, a comedy festival, whatever.

The Nashville experience proved it. It wasn’t about cannabis. It was about the energy. The social setting. The scene. Cannabis just elevated it.

A Regulatory Double Standard? Or a Glimpse of the Future?

And yet, here’s the kicker.

This whole scene—the infused drinks, the storefronts, the party atmosphere—was happening in a state where cannabis is 100% illegal. No licenses. No regulation. No 280E. No taxes. No restrictions on co-locating with alcohol.

Meanwhile, in legal states, cannabis lounges can’t serve alcohol and often face local rules that make music and food service difficult to implement at scale. But here’s a workaround: a bar next door, on a separate premises, can solve that. It’s legal now. Just underutilized.

It’s wild.

The Yin and the Yang

There’s a tension here that deserves attention.

On one hand, this explosion of intoxicating hemp products is forcing a cultural shift. Consumers are seeing THC drinks at bars, on grocery store shelves, in 7-11s and smoke shops, and it’s breaking down decades of stigma. It’s normalizing something that shouldn’t have been abnormal in the first place.

On the other hand, this is happening outside the walls of the legal industry—an industry that’s shouldering insane costs to operate above board. Taxes. Licensing fees. Compliance. Legal counsel. Zoning issues. Banking issues. Insurance. Payroll. Track-and-trace. You name it.

They play by the rules and get punished. The hemp side plays by different rules and gets market share.

That can’t last forever. But it’s real, right now.

Is This a Loophole – or the Blueprint?

I don’t think this is just a fluke. I think this is a preview.

It’s possible—maybe even likely—that what I experienced in Nashville is where things are headed. That THC drinks will be the bridge between cannabis culture and mainstream culture. That music venues, bars, and social scenes will be the frontlines of cannabis normalization, not dispensaries or lounges.

And if that’s true, then licensed operators need to adapt now.

We don’t need to wait for federal legalization to change how lounges operate. We need to stop building cannabis-forward experiences and start building experience-forward venues where cannabis fits in.

That means better real estate. Better design. Better events. And yes—better beverage options.

Final Thought on Cannabis Lounge Experience

The best cannabis lounge I’ve ever been in was in a bar in Tennessee.

The cannabis was hemp-derived. The bar was unlicensed. But the experience? It was everything the legal industry is trying to create—and hasn’t quite nailed yet.

That night, cannabis was just there, part of the scene. It didn’t need its own spotlight. It belonged.

And that’s the future.