BluLight Dispensary Soon For Gloucester City (O'Donnell's), Opened In Woodbury Heights

BluLight Cannabis Dispensary is coming soon to Gloucester City’s former O’Donnell’s restaurant building. This is the second South Jersey location for BluLight who about two weeks ago celebrated the Grand Opening of their Woodbury Heights location.

Blulight say they take their name from the fact that during the cultivation process of cannabis, blue light is used to enhance THC levels… And their goal with their cannabis dispensaries is to similarly elevate the cannabis experience… the retail shopping experience, which also includes a loyalty programs

BluLight Woodbury Heights

The Woodbury Heights location for BluLight is a former Ocean First Bank branch located on Rt 45 (Mantua Pike).

The location puts them basically next to the Hollywood Café Diner which is located across Elm Ave. (The Hollywood Diner is undergoing a major remodeling right now!)

The modern designed building allows the dispensary to utilize the drive-thru as a pickup service… customers can place their order online first and then stop back later to pick up at the drive-thru window.

According to Social Media posts it appears the Woodbury Heights location opened on Halloween Day which included a Grand Opening celebration.

BluLight Dispensary – Next to Hollywood Diner

This is actually the second bank location that BluLight has targeted for Woodbury Heights.

They originally had hoped to take over a former Nova Bank building which sits just 200 feet away from the current dispensary location (somewhat behind Hollywood Café). Unfortunately as they were working through the process to get approvals and open that location, a devastating fire destroyed the building.

While I’d imagine that was a stressful and challenging time for the dispensary operators, the final open location for BluLight sitting directly on the busy Route 45 at a traffic light intersection… may actually work out better for them in the long run!

BluLight Gloucester City

A second BluLight Cannabis Dispensary location for South Jersey is planned to open in Gloucester City, with exterior construction appearing to be near the end of the process.

That being said I do not know the status of the interior remodel.

The location for the new Gloucester City BluLight dispensary is on Broadway, just a block and a half from the Walt Whitman Bridge, in a building that for many decades was known as O’Donnell’s restaurant (and for a short time frame was Timeout II)

BluLight Dispensary – Gloucester City (O’Donnell’s Restaurant Building)

I stopped in a few days ago to walk around the building which is sporting a new exterior paint of grey with blue accents (matching their branding). Additionally the parking lot has been fully repaved. There is a small amount of changes to the parking lot… due to the lower customer counts of a dispensary (compared to a bar/restaurant) they actually removed some of the asphalt to add more landscaped areas.

A prominent monument “BluLight” sign is also installed on the property

When opened it appears that BluLight would be the first dispensary located within Gloucester City, and its proximity near the bridge could see it also attracting customers from Fairview and other nearby communities.

It would appear that this Gloucester City location does not have a drive-thru service as that was not part of the original restaurant/bar offerings. I’ve visited O’Donnell’s many times including the year when it was Time Out II… and it does not appear that any of the exterior building structure was changed at all.

The building had been known as O’Donnell restaurant and tavern for nearly 100 years. A newspaper advertisement I located stated they opened in 1923!

During my childhood years in the 1970s I remember my father had two favorite restaurants to eat at, one was My Friend’s on Mount Ephraim Avenue in Camden and the other was O’Donnell’s in Gloucester City.

O’Donnell’s was famous (at least in my family) for their Manhattan Clam Chowder which I can still taste in my memories! Even if we weren’t coming in for dinner there would be regularly drives over to the restaurant to pick up quarts of the soup to take home!