Pure Oasis on Blue Hill Avenue earns a 4.2 out of 5 from us, and the entire Boston cannabis industry should be sending the shop a thank-you note for the receipts it has signed since March 9, 2020. We rolled in on a Wednesday at 2:15 PM, walked out twenty-three minutes later with an eighth of in-house Wedding Cake at $40 and a Heavy Hitters live resin cart at $50, and spent more time talking to the budtender about Grove Hall than scanning the menu wall. The room is small, the light is good, the prices read more grocery than boutique, and the catalog leans on partner brands the way an indie record store leans on the major label distributors. The story is the visit.
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Pure Oasis sits on the Blue Hill Avenue strip in Grove Hall, Dorchester. |
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The First Recreational Receipt Inside Boston City Limits
Pure Oasis is the first recreational cannabis store ever to open inside the City of Boston, the first Black-owned cannabis retailer in Massachusetts, and the first storefront approved through the Cannabis Control Commission’s economic empowerment program. The City of Boston issued its first final retail license to Pure Oasis on February 6, 2020, and the doors opened five weeks later on Blue Hill Avenue at the corner of Sunderland Street.
It opened anyway.
Five weeks after the final license cleared, COVID lockdowns shuttered most of the city. Adult-use sales in Massachusetts were paused as nonessential through May 25, 2020, per the Commission’s March 23 order, and the shop reopened in late May with a curbside pickup workflow Pure Oasis kept running through the fall. The retail map of the City of Boston still shows the same first-mover footprint six years later. Twenty-plus rec storefronts now sit inside the city, and Pure Oasis is the original receipt at the top of the stack.
Two Dorchester Natives, Three Years of Permitting Hell
The co-owners are Kobie Evans and Kevin Hart, both Dorchester natives. (Not the comedian, for the record.) Evans is a former real estate agent. Hart ran a healthcare practice. Both grew up in Boston neighborhoods where cannabis arrests were the highest per capita in the state through the 2000s and 2010s, the same neighborhoods the Massachusetts economic empowerment program was written to repair.
The pair started the licensing fight in 2017, the year after Question 4 passed. Boston was famously slow to issue retail licenses, and the host community agreement gauntlet ran three years. Evans and Hart held the line on local ownership while the multi-state operators were offering buyout packages on every corner. “We wanted to be the next generation of trailblazers to provide an example to the residents of the neighborhood, to the young people, to the budding entrepreneurs,” Evans told the Boston Globe on opening week. “These things are possible.”
Hart, in the same Globe profile, explained the financing fight: “If we didn’t have access to capital, that could’ve worked. They were offering what we needed. All you’d need to do is sell your soul.” Steven Hoffman, the original CCC chair, summed up the broader pattern to WGBH in September 2020: “I am starting to become embarrassed by the inequities in the Massachusetts marijuana industry.” Out of more than 200 adult-use storefronts open in the state by mid-2020, exactly one was a Black-owned equity license. That was Pure Oasis.
The Walk From Egleston to Blue Hill at Sunderland
The shop sits at 430 Blue Hill Avenue on the Grove Hall strip, three blocks from the 28 bus that runs Mattapan Square to Ruggles Station, walking distance from the Grove Hall public library and the Greater Grove Hall Main Streets office. Single-story commercial storefront, clean black awning with the Pure Oasis logo, security guard at the door who knows the neighborhood. Park in the lot at OneUnited Bank a block down or grab the 28 from anywhere on the Orange Line.
I walked in at 2:15 PM on a Wednesday in early spring and there were three customers ahead of me. ID check at the front, no metal detectors, no lockers, just the badge scan and you walk straight to the menu wall. The room is small. Single counter, six budtender slots, the menu boards mounted above the counter at eye level. The flower wall sits on the right and the concentrate case on the left and the edibles case on the back wall. Total dwell time front to back was twenty-three minutes including the budtender conversation, the pour-over coffee from the cafe two doors down, and a stop at the register to add a pre-roll I had not planned to buy.
The budtender who pulled my order was a Dorchester hire named Devon. He could name the terpene profile of the in-house Wedding Cake without checking the tablet, told me the cure date was twelve days out, and walked me through the $35 to $50 eighth tier without trying to push me up to the boutique price point. He cracked the jar at the counter and held it under the LED so I could see the trichome coverage. “This is the one,” he said. “In-house, fresh cure, candy on the open lid.” I bought it. It honked the room out exactly the way he called it.
I asked him about the equity story. He said the budtender team is mostly local hires from the Greater Grove Hall Main Streets community, the same job pipeline Evans and Hart pitched to the Cannabis Control Commission in the original economic empowerment application. He pointed to a framed press clipping on the wall behind the counter from the Boston Globe profile and said the line that gets quoted in the staff onboarding is the one about selling your soul. The eighth came in a child-resistant push-pop tin with the strain name and lab numbers printed on the lid. The cart came in a clean black box with the Heavy Hitters branding. Receipt, exit, into a black SUV idling at the curb with the meter running on a different errand.
The Menu Read in April 2026, Front to Back
Pure Oasis runs three flower tiers, two pre-roll formats, and a concentrate case that reads like a Boston-area distributor sampler. The shelf during my Wednesday visit broke down like this:
- Flower, eighths: $35 in-house cured (Wedding Cake, Northern Lights, Apple Fritter), $40 in-house premium (Sour Diesel, GMO), $50 partner brand top shelf (Theory Wellness Lemon Pepper, Berkshire Roots Roots Reserve).
- Pre-rolls: $14 single half-gram in-house, $30 five-pack of full-gram infused (Insa moon rocks).
- Carts and disposables: $30 Theory distillate full gram, $50 Heavy Hitters live resin full gram, $60 STIIIZY pod plus battery bundle.
- Edibles: $20 Cresco Mindy’s gummies (100 mg total), $25 Wana Strawberry Lemonade gummies (100 mg total), $5 single-dose Kanha mints.
- Concentrate: $35 Theory live rosin half-gram, $45 Insa shatter half-gram, $60 Berkshire Roots full-gram badder.
Tax tacks 20 percent on top per the Massachusetts Department of Revenue cannabis tax schedule. State excise is 10.75 percent, state sales is 6.25 percent, Boston local option is 3 percent. My eighth at $40 plus the Heavy Hitters cart at $50 walked out the door for $108 even after rounding. The receipt is the answer to the question on every other state’s CCC docket.
The honest weakness is menu depth. Pure Oasis is a single-location operator competing on a Greater Boston menu where the Ascend, NETA, Berkshire Roots, and Theory Wellness verticals run their own grow rooms with deeper top-shelf bench. The Pure Oasis catalog leans on partner brands by necessity, which means the headline drops on Cookies, Wyld, Dialed In, and the Cresco trinity tend to land at the verticals first. The reason the shop earns the visit anyway is the in-house cured line at the value tier and the budtender bench. Both are dialed in.
Riding Out the 2026 Massachusetts Pricing Crash
Massachusetts adult-use flower wholesale prices crashed roughly 50 percent year over year through Q1 2026, per the Boston Globe’s read of CCC sales data. The same eighth that retailed at $55 to $60 in 2022 now retails at $35 to $50, and the operators that built single-location independent footprints are riding the crash without the vertical cushion the multi-state operators run. Pure Oasis is in that group.
The shop is still here. Still on the same Blue Hill Avenue corner, same hours, same staff. Evans and Hart turned down a buyout offer in 2023 that the local trade press confirmed at eight figures, kept the business privately held, and pushed the in-house cured line down to the value tier to take share back from the verticals. The receipt counter is the answer.
Pros and Cons
Pros
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Cons
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Pure Oasis the first Black-owned dispensary in Boston?
Yes. Pure Oasis on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester opened on March 9, 2020 as the first Black-owned recreational cannabis store in Massachusetts and the first storefront approved through the Cannabis Control Commission’s economic empowerment program for Boston.
Who owns Pure Oasis?
Co-owners Kobie Evans and Kevin Hart, both Dorchester natives. Not the comedian Kevin Hart. Evans is a former real estate agent and Hart ran a healthcare practice before they spent three years navigating the Boston permitting process.
What time does Pure Oasis open and close?
Pure Oasis is open 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM every day of the week, including Sundays.
Do you need a medical card to buy at Pure Oasis?
No. Pure Oasis is a Massachusetts CCC adult-use retailer. Anyone 21 or older with a valid government-issued photo ID can purchase recreationally.
How do I get to Pure Oasis on public transit?
Take the Orange Line to Ruggles Station and transfer to the 28 bus toward Mattapan. Get off at Blue Hill Avenue at Lawrence Avenue or Blue Hill Avenue at Quincy Street. The shop is at 430 Blue Hill Ave on the Grove Hall strip, three blocks from either stop.
What does an eighth cost at Pure Oasis?
Eighths run $35 to $50 plus the 20 percent Massachusetts cannabis tax stack. The in-house cured line at $35 to $40 is the value pick. Partner brand top shelf from Theory Wellness and Berkshire Roots tops out at $50.
Best For, Skip If
Best for Boston cannabis tourists who want the historic visit, Dorchester and Mattapan locals who want a non-MSO shop on the 28 bus line, and budget-conscious flower buyers who can ride the in-house cured tier instead of chasing the boutique top shelf.
Skip if you are chasing the deepest possible top-shelf flower menu in Greater Boston (head to NETA Brookline or Berkshire Roots East Boston), or if you need a downtown stop near North Station before a Bruins or Celtics game (head to Ascend Boston Friend Street).
Pure Oasis is on the Top 5 Cannabis Dispensaries in Boston list at the top slot, and the operator catalog it leans on shows up across our Top Cannabis Brands in Massachusetts roundup. The first equity dispensary in Boston is still standing on the same corner, six years and one pricing crash later. The story is the visit. Pay it.
