What's a Brown Budda OMie?

An OMing homie ... ba dum bum 🥁

Kim Stetz, Co-Founder BBNY & Chef Marq Hayes, Co-Founder BBNY @ Enchanted Gala 2024 Channing Daughters Winery

Titles & Whatnot

Co-founder Marq Hayes posted this photo of us on his IG story and quipped, “Me and the homie outside.” From this ingenious remark, my “title,” was born - OMie. I can’t count how many times I have chanted OM in my life - I love to OM! I wasn’t always that way - when I first started practicing yoga, I was one of the people who “opted out” when “invited” to OM in class. I didn’t understand the power of breathing and humming. What did I know at 22 when I took my first class? I took breathing for granted. I took my body for granted. I took everything for granted - youth, health, and whatnot. I am grateful the tides within found the right teachers and gurus, that allowed me to turn towards self-discovery and healing through the ancient and codified practice of yoga. When we OM, we bow to the divine within and grow that heart and mind connection like nobody’s business. 

As co-founder of Brown Budda New York, I inherently bring holistic wellness to the business. I wake and meditate. I am under the OMfluence (the title of something I wanted to do a decade ago - who knows when that might take flight!) It’s not always easy being a yogi - or being around yogis (unless you are willing to surrender something - usually the ego will do). We, yogis, have sorted through and navigated some serious, heavy shit in our lives which allows us to feel lighter and more at ease when we come out the other side. And this happens many times in a lifetime. Definitely not one and done. The practice of yoga provides the practitioner with a how-to tool kit including compassion, patience, and fierceness with little room for bullshit. It’s just what happens. 

You trade in your yesterdays to live in the present so tomorrow can be all it can be. 

As OMie of BBNY, it is my self-appointed job to learn, educate, and create. All of these objectives are happening simultaneously as we move from a conceptualized brand to an actual operating business. The greatest test thus far, gettingto the finish line of phase one - delivery services compliant and operational without a moment’s pause before the next phase, operating a cannabis business. 

Planning a Menu

Did someone say product menus, please? Yes, Brown Budda New York did. 

The perks of having a Michelin Star-trained chef for a partner go beyond access to dynamite food. He knows how to create an award-winning, customer-enticing, all-star menu to reel in the customers, keep ‘em intrigued, and come back for more. Our dispensary menu is cut from the same designer’s cloth. BBNY has high standards. Our approach, regardless of who the customer is, is to curate and serve the best NYS has to offer. 

For the past two years, we’ve been meeting the farmers and sales reps of many NYS brands who have weathered the storm. Networking, events, yada yada yada - not the yogi business lifestyle I’ve been accustomed to for the last 20 years or so. I have to say, I feel well-equipped walking on this path of the unknown. When I started teaching yoga 20 years or so ago, there were a handful of yoga teachers in NYC who were qualified and confident in teaching pre & post-natal yoga, restorative, pranayama, and meditation. These are facts. When you’re a part of creating an emerging market and live that life, you’re efforts are immeasurable during the movement becoming footprints for the next generation to walk in. That’s what’s happening right here and now. 

We’ve been doing our homework- learning about the cannabis brands we want to launch with. We are curating our menu to offer the finer cannabis flavors that NYS has to offer in all forms - flower, edibles, tinctures, pills, resins, etc. NYS has some of the finest products available in the country hence why many of the national cannabis brands have found their way into NY by processing here. It’s the law and how NYS rolls. We are accustomed to being around the best and so shall we be the best.

What’s On The Menu?

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