The old Frisch's Big Boy at 559 State Route 125 in Cherry Grove is getting a new life as a cannabis dispensary. Certified Cultivators, which bills itself as Ohio's largest seller of adult-use cannabis, plans to open its sixth Ohio dispensary at the site in spring 2027, bringing the state's recreational pot boom directly into a stretch of Clermont County that lost its neighborhood diner.
The expansion was reported by Cincinnati CityBeat, which detailed how founder Zach Weprin and his team landed on the vacant Frisch's property as Certified's entry point into the Cincinnati market. Weprin, a Dayton native who also founded the Cincinnati sushi chain Fusian in 2010, according to the same report, acquired the location with help from Josh Rothstein, a vice president and senior broker at Colliers. The new dispensary will keep the building's distinctive Frisch's-era windows and sign cabinets rather than tearing them down, the outlet notes.
It's a familiar pattern for Certified, whose dispensaries tend to occupy former fast-food restaurants, per the CityBeat report. The company will sell flower, vapes, gummies, drinks and Rick Simpson oil out of the Cherry Grove storefront, with Certified-brand products already available at every dispensary in Ohio.
A Vacant Diner Finds New Purpose
The Cherry Grove property became available after a rough stretch for the Frisch's chain across the region. The site was among more than 20 Greater Cincinnati locations targeted in late 2024 eviction filings brought by landlord NNN REIT LP over $4.5 million in unpaid rent, according to Restaurant Business. The crisis traced back to a 2015 private equity buyout by NRD Partners I. Frisch's sold the real estate of 74 out of 121 stores to NNN REIT for about $47 million, a transaction that left rent obligations climbing faster than diner sales could keep pace, as detailed by NewBusinessDesk.
That collapse has opened the door for a wave of adaptive reuse across the Tri-State. Hoodline previously reported that Lexington developer Lee Greer scooped up 11 shuttered Frisch's properties across Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana for $17.2 million through Olowalu Land Company LLC, part of a broader trend of former Frisch's buildings becoming fast-food stands, medical clinics and now retail dispensaries.
Behind the Certified Brand
Certified Cultivators runs its central growing and processing operation out of Dayton, inside a commercial building that Weprin's father originally bought in 1996 for an auto parts distribution business, according to Columbus Underground. Per CityBeat, that facility now spans 40,000 square feet of indoor growing space and cost more than $50 million to build. Jake Warm, the fourth-generation owner of Cincinnati-based Warm Construction, built the facility and has constructed every Certified Cultivators site across Ohio. “Certified's cultivation, processing and retail facilities have been his company's work since day one,” Warm said, per the CityBeat report.
Certified's products include flower, vapes, edibles and beverages. CityBeat reports Certified's products go through six or seven rounds of testing across the product life cycle. Weprin has said his cannabis business began after a conversation with his father about smoking a joint, and that he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, details he shared with CityBeat. “The new Cincinnati business is fun and exciting,” Weprin said of the Cherry Grove project, per the outlet.
Ohio's Fast-Growing Legal Market
The Cherry Grove opening lands amid a legal cannabis market that has grown rapidly since Ohio voters passed Issue 2 in November 2023, with adult-use retail sales launching statewide on August 6, 2024, according to MunchMakers. Before that, Ohio had operated solely under a medical marijuana framework that then-Governor John Kasich signed into law in 2017, per CityBeat. Ohio collected $55.6 million in adult-use excise taxes in fiscal 2025.
State lawmakers have continued to reshape the rules around cannabis and hemp. In December 2025, Governor Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 56, banning unregulated intoxicating hemp-derived THC products outside state-licensed dispensaries, as reported by the Statehouse News Bureau. CityBeat also notes that Ohio lawmakers are considering a further ban on THC and hemp-derived products. Adult-use purchase limits include a one-ounce flower-or-equivalent limit.
Opening a dispensary in Ohio isn't cheap. Operators must pay a $5,000 initial application fee, followed by a $70,000 certificate of operation fee and a $70,000 biennial license renewal fee to the state, according to the City of Shaker Heights. Those costs sit on top of whatever it takes to convert a property like the old Cherry Grove Frisch's, a building whose vintage signage will soon advertise cannabis instead of Big Boy burgers when Certified's sixth Ohio dispensary opens its doors next spring.
