There are some great options in this neighborhood when it comes to cannabis products, but I'm afraid Natural Wonders is not one of them. They certainly have a geographical advantage compared to many, and their location will offer convenience, undoubtedly, you're walking Hawthorne or making a quick trip to Freddie's across the street.
Natural Wonders has been in its current location for a while, and I remember its opening well. I went in only a week or so after it opened and didn't visit again for many months. Now, in total, I've been probably a dozen or so times. There are definitely things I like about Natural Wonders. I like the suppliers that they work with, and the transparency when it comes to just that, the provenance of their products and what makes each grower distinct. Like wine, going from the juice back to the grape, the land, and the grower. Marketing, but nevertheless it gives one a framework that helps us conceptualize the various flower. Quality is so-so. They do offer top-tier growers, often offering fantastic and rare strains. But just as often, their menus are filled with generic-seeming "mids." One can exclaim loudly that this or that is a CBD powerhouse, but at the end of the day it is a lowly-looking strain filled with seeds, brown, loosely configured, smelling of hay, and incapable of producing a high.
I've found the staff at Natural Wonders too often pre-occupied with their own activities to ever pay much attention to clientele. Often there will be two or three socializing and the customer will be like a third leg, with an unfortunate and instantly-regrettable greeting formed hastily out of obligation onto the landscape of social cues and gesture. I always feel uncomfortable here. The staff is rude and even more so, arrogant. Undeservedly so, since they don't come off as especially knowledgeable nor do they seem to be at that cutting edge of their industry.
Natural Wonders is by far the most expensive store like it, in the area. Hence it being mostly trafficked by tourists and travelers. Many tourists are so shell-shocked or impressed at the sight of legal marijuana, they won't really question the prices or the quality-to-price ratio. On my most recent visit, they offered one strain for $20/gram. This at a time when there is a glut in the supply of marijuana and consequently most shops are lowering their prices. Go down the street to Cannabis Connection, or down to Division and 37th, where Brothers is located, or to the newly opened Amberlight. These stores have universally recognized the fundamental market forces currently at work in the cannabis economy and have responded by lowering prices across the board. Many strains are now available for far less than $10/gram currently. The outdoor harvest was unexpectedly large, and the indoor market has also seen a huge increase in supply. Simultaneously, demand has actually lowered in many areas.
I don't know why, but I feel as though Natural Wonders has been getting progressively worse. Again, prices have risen recently. On a recent visit I was told I could not touch or hold the tiny container of mj, but rather could only smell it. And of course, they have no marijuana openly on display, so if any interests you, you must ask to see it (but don't ask to touch any!). This is, again, the only example like it I have encountered within this industry. I also haven't encountered the same behavior at any shops within Colorado, California, nor Washington. Draw your own conclusions.
I've been to cannabis dispensaries throughout the west-coast and Colorado, and I frequent SE dispensaries. Natural Wonders is by far the worst. read more