She’s here, she’s queer, and she’s an edibles pioneer. Lester Black
Jody Hall does business like a Wild West settler: For two decades, she’s been setting up shop not where the customers are but where the customers will be. She worked at Starbucks in the early 1990s, when most Americans couldn’t pronounce “latte” and the chain had 30 stores. Then she created Cupcake Royale in 2003, before people could imagine spending $4 on a small cake.
Cupcake Royale now has six locations and sells cakes to Metropolitan Market and Alaska Airlines. You know what happened to Starbucks.
Now she’s in the middle of Washington’s weed industry, running her own edibles company called Goodship. She’s betting that in a market where pot is getting cheaper every month, consumers will pay extra for her made-from-scratch confections.
