Sessions By The Bay

Sessions By The Bay opened in April 2025 as the first cannabis consumption lounge, dispensary, and restaurant in San Diego County, sitting right on the water in National City. Owners Alex and Pearl Ayon built it out across three levels — a 3,000-square-foot, market-style dispensary on the ground floor where you grab a basket and browse, an immersive, Moroccan-inspired lounge and restaurant above it, and an open-air terrace looking out over the bay. The venue bills itself as the largest cannabis lounge in the United States.

The food-and-drink model is the interesting part. The kitchen, run by executive chef Jorge Bendesky, serves a full menu of non-infused dishes, and the bar pours signature mocktails — and rather than dosing your food or drink for you, the program hands you water-soluble THC to infuse it yourself, so you control the strength. It’s a genuinely different take from the buy-and-smoke lounges up the coast: this one reads as a restaurant first.

Programming runs most nights — live music, DJ sets, stand-up comedy, brand activations, movie nights, and a recurring cannabis night market. Reservations are encouraged (walk-ins welcome by availability), device rentals are on hand if you didn’t bring your own, and there’s a lounge-entry structure tied to your dispensary spend. If Moe Greens is the city social hall and Barbary Coast is the historic dab room, Sessions is the destination dining room of the CA set.