Ordering ahead, and why it is usually faster

Pick the store first, not the product

Every Cannavine store carries its own inventory, so the menu you should be shopping is the one attached to the store you will actually collect from. Stock in Ukiah is not stock in Belmont.

Set your store once and the menus, deals and links across the site follow it. If you are not sure which is closest, the store finder lists all four with their addresses and hours.

Build the order on the live menu

The product rows on our store pages come from the same system that runs the register, so what you see is what is on the shelf at that moment rather than a weekly snapshot. Two consequences worth knowing:

• It moves. A product showing at nine in the morning can be gone by five, particularly on deal items.
• Prices are live. What the menu quotes is the shelf price; California's taxes are applied at the register, which our guide on why the shelf price is not the price you pay explains.

What happens while you drive

The order goes to the store, someone pulls the items and bags them. In practice an order placed ahead is usually ready in about twenty minutes, which for most of the towns around our stores is roughly the drive.

If something in the basket has sold out between your order and the pull, the store contacts you rather than substituting silently.

What still happens in person

Three things cannot be done in advance, because California does not allow them to be:

• The ID check. Age is verified at the door, on every visit, by law. Ordering ahead does not skip it.
• Payment. It happens at the store, not online.
• The handover. A licensed employee passes the sealed bag to you inside the premises.

So ordering ahead removes the browsing and the queue, not the visit. It is still faster, and on a busy Friday it is much faster.

If a drive is not the answer

One of our stores runs delivery: Belmont, with our own drivers, into the Peninsula towns listed on its page. If you are inside one of those zones, delivery may beat pickup outright. San Francisco, Santa Rosa and Ukiah are pickup: order ahead and collect.

Each location page says plainly which applies, including when the answer is no. Pick your store and it will tell you.