Rolling Stoner Sessions with Teddy Dan
The Journey Behind Cape Weed Lovers Market
Interviewer and writer: Andrew Macfarlane
For locals in Woodstock, Cape Weed Lovers Market may now be a familiar sight on Albert Road. However, the journey behind this Rolling Stoner-authenticated destination started hundreds of kilometres away.
It actually began with a hoodie.
Rolling Stoner sat down with Teddy Dan to talk about the road to Cape Weed Lovers Market, the people who influenced the journey and what it took to turn an idea into a physical space in Cape Town.
The Start Of The Journey
Long before Cape Weed Lovers Market opened its doors, Teddy was working in Braamfontein and living in Edenvale.
It was around 2020 and 2021. South Africa’s cannabis retail landscape looked very different, but his relationship with the plant was already well established.
Through friends, he was introduced to Zola, an entrepreneur from Soweto who had started producing clothing and accessories under the name Weed Lovers Market.
One particular delivery left a lasting impression.
He ordered a pink Weed Lovers Market hoodie. Zola personally drove from Soweto to Edenvale to deliver it.
For a single hoodie.
“I really admired his work ethic,” he remembers. “This guy was trying to build something, and he didn’t care that I was only buying one hoodie. He drove all the way from Soweto to Edenvale just to deliver it to me. That was how I got to know Zola.”
It was a relatively small interaction at the time.
Years later, that hoodie and the relationship that followed would become one of the earliest links in the chain leading to Cape Weed Lovers Market.
From Weed Lovers Market To A Bigger Idea
Zola’s original Weed Lovers Market was initially built around cannabis culture rather than a physical cannabis space.
The brand appeared on clothing, beanies and other merchandise as South Africa’s emerging cannabis scene gradually became more visible.
Then the concept began to grow.
Pop-up activations provided an opportunity to take the brand directly to people, particularly within Soweto’s lively weekend car culture.
“He used to have this pop-up shop at a place called Baby’s Corner,” Teddy explains. “Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday he would be there. In South Africa, car culture is a big thing, so people would come there, wash their cars, showcase their cars and spend time together.”
The audience was already gathering.
Weed Lovers Market eventually progressed from those pop-ups into permanent locations.
Watching that growth planted a seed.
Here was someone who started with clothing and branding, found an audience, and gradually built something much bigger around it.
The idea of doing something similar would stay with him.
Taking The Journey To Cape Town
After his employment contract in Johannesburg ended, an opportunity emerged through Molepo, someone he knew who operated within the tourism and transport industry.
That opportunity brought him to Cape Town.
For roughly two years, he worked while quietly putting money aside.
There was no master plan for those savings yet.
“While I was working for him, I was running some savings on the side,” he says. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but savings are always a wise thing.”
Meanwhile, Cape Town’s cannabis landscape was beginning to shift.
More venues were appearing and, as someone already deeply interested in the plant, the possibility of building something independently became harder to ignore.
Some of the city’s earlier cannabis spaces provided inspiration.
“I remember visiting only about two stores here in Cape Town,” he says. “Those were some of the shops that inspired me. At the time, we didn’t have all these stores that are around now.”
Seeing those early operators helped demonstrate that there was room to try something different.
But before going any further, there was an important conversation to have.
Creating Cape Weed Lovers Market
The Weed Lovers Market identity belonged to Zola.
Rather than simply borrowing it, Teddy went back to the person who had originally introduced him to the brand.
“I contacted Zola and said, ‘Listen, you opened the shop and it’s doing well in Johannesburg. I was thinking of doing a similar project in Cape Town, but the name Weed Lovers Market belongs to you. You came up with the idea, the clothing and the branding. So I want to do something similar, but I’m going to add the word Cape in front of Weed Lovers Market.’”
Cape Weed Lovers Market was registered in 2022.
The physical shop would take another year to become a reality.
That period also coincided with one of the most difficult chapters of his life.
His mother died in 2023 after battling breast cancer. His father had died many years earlier, when Teddy was still in Grade 3.
The loss brought questions about responsibility, independence and the future sharply into focus.
“My mom left two of us, my younger brother and me,” he explains. “I felt like, alright, my mom is no more. Now I have to look after my younger brother. I had the job, but I thought, how about I have something here that can actually take care of me, my younger brother and also other people who depend on me?”
The business idea suddenly carried considerably more weight.
Building The Shop From Personal Savings
There was no major investment round waiting in the wings.
Cape Weed Lovers Market was built using the money saved while working in Cape Town.
“I just thought, what if I can actually open my own thing?” he remembers. “I love cannabis so much. I’m a smoker myself and I had some savings on the side. So I took a risk.”
Once the Woodstock premises were secured, those savings had to cover the deposit, rent, shopfitting and everything else required to transform an empty space into an operating business.
The doors finally opened in 2023.
Then the public had to decide whether the gamble had been worthwhile.
The response, particularly from the surrounding community, made a difference.
“We’ve really grown, and I give so much thanks to all the locals and international fans, especially the locals,” he says. “We’ve received lots of support from people around Woodstock and even all of Cape Town.”
That support has since stretched beyond the Western Cape.
Visitors have come through from Johannesburg, Pretoria, Mpumalanga and the Free State, alongside international travellers finding their way into Woodstock.
What started with personal savings, a lease and a willingness to take a chance was gradually becoming a destination.
Cannabis Quality Became Personal
There is another part of the story that predates Cape Weed Lovers Market.
Frustration.
Years of buying cannabis had shown Teddy how inconsistent the experience could be.
Something could be excellent one day and disappointing the next.
When it came time to build his own offering, that frustration became part of the philosophy behind it.
“I’m really so passionate about cannabis because I remember my struggles trying to get good cannabis growing up,” he explains. “The people we were buying from were not consistent. Today you get good herb, and the next day it’s not good.”
That experience created a simple internal benchmark.
“What I smoke is what we sell,” he says. “We are not going to have staff smoking very good cannabis and then what we are selling is not good.”
For him, passion and product knowledge belong together.
Running a cannabis business still needs to generate a return, but that cannot be the only reason for being involved.
“Yes, we know any business needs to see some return on investment, but you need passion to run this business,” he says. “You need to know what cannabis is and what good cannabis is. At the end of the day, you know what to give people, you know how to treat people and you understand what they expect.”
That philosophy has become one of the foundations of Cape Weed Lovers Market.
From Enthusiast To Operator
Building a business around something you enjoy also changes your relationship with it.
The responsibilities are different now.
There are staff members, suppliers, meetings and the daily grind of keeping a physical operation moving.
That has meant learning when cannabis fits into the day and when business needs to come first.
“When you get serious into the business, you get lots of meetings,” he explains. “You need to be here, you need to go there. I like to enjoy it anyway, so during the day it gets difficult for me to move quickly, have meetings and do all that stuff.”
The enthusiast has gradually had to become an operator too.
And as the operation has grown, staff knowledge has become another important part of the equation.
Training The Cape Weed Lovers Market Team
The team behind the counter is expected to understand more than simply what happens to be on the shelves.
Cape Weed Lovers Market works with outside organisations for training and operational guidance.
For medical cannabis enquiries, Teddy says the business works alongside Cannabis Clinics South Africa, providing a connection to the appropriate medical consultation process.
The business also works with SIKA Compliance, part of SIKA Group, which provides compliance services and training to cannabis-related businesses, including Private Members Clubs.
The relationship includes recurring staff training rather than a once-off induction.
“We always get training after every three or four months,” he explains. “They come down here. They share lots of files with us and training materials that the staff can read, and they also come and train them in person.”
That training extends into the day-to-day operation of the club.
“They come to our council and tell them everything they need to know, what they need to say, what not to say, how they should be handling the plant and everything.”
For a business operating within South Africa’s still-evolving cannabis environment, having outside specialists involved provides another layer of guidance.
Trying To Navigate A Complicated Industry
South Africa’s cannabis environment remains complex.
Adult private cannabis use has undergone enormous legal change, but the frameworks surrounding medical cannabis, commercial activity and Private Members Clubs continue to require careful navigation.
That uncertainty shapes some of the decisions made inside Cape Weed Lovers Market.
Products are not simply introduced because they happen to be gaining popularity elsewhere.
According to Teddy, the team first consults the organisations guiding its compliance processes.
“Any stock that we want to get into Cape Weed Lovers Market, we have to consult these companies first,” he explains. “Sometimes there are products that we really want to have, but we don’t get a green light from the companies that are doing our compliance.”
It can be frustrating.
But the alternative would be guessing.
For Cape Weed Lovers Market, the preferred approach has been to move cautiously, maintain its systems and make staff training part of the ongoing operation.
From A Pink Hoodie To Woodstock
There is something fitting about where this journey began.
One man drove across Johannesburg to deliver a single hoodie.
That small gesture left an impression, but so did everything that followed.
Weed Lovers Market grew from merchandise into pop-ups, then into physical spaces. Watching that progression helped spark an idea of what could be possible elsewhere.
Cape Town eventually became the next chapter.
Years of work came first, along with savings, personal loss and the decision to take a chance on a Woodstock lease.
Eventually, the doors opened.
Today, Cape Weed Lovers Market has become part of Woodstock’s cannabis landscape, built around many of the same lessons that shaped the journey from the start.
Quality matters.
So does knowledge, consistency and having the right people around you.
Big journeys rarely announce themselves at the beginning.
Sometimes, they arrive folded inside a pink hoodie.