Guide: Discover the Best Candy Stores in New York

As New York City also boasts of its burgeoning cultural landscape, its diverse food scene and its myriad of shopping areas, it is hard not to overlook one of the Big Apple's most specific and focused pleasure venues: the candy store. Regardless if you are a chocolate snob, care only for gummy bears, or prefer old-school treats, New York City has a number of candy stores that will turn your taste buds upside down. So take your pick from this listing of some of the city's best candy emporiums.

1. Dylan's Candy Bar

Dylan's Candy Bar, in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, is every candy fiend's nirvana. With more than 7,000 different kinds of candy, spread across three floors and hundreds of square feet, the shop offers a kaleidoscope of colours, flavours and storybook fantasy. Along with the standard selection of candies, from chocolate and gummies to sour and nostalgic ones, Dylan's offers a rainbow of flavours and a variety of crazy confections like cupcake sandwich cookies, gooey frosting extruders, vast chocolate domes, and bundles of Peeps adorned like species from an exotic rainforest. Try the candy cocktails too. Dylan's also does customised gift baskets.

2. Economy Candy

If it's nostalgia you're after, make your way to Economy Candy on the Lower East Side. A family-owned business since 1937, Economy Candy has been providing patrons with an array of old-time candies, imported sweets, and hard-to-find treats for decades. Browsing their shelves of throwback candies, vintage sodas, and novelty merchandise is an experience all its own, but you really can't go wrong by delving into their legendary chocolate-covered everything. You may be there simply to remember, but Economy Candy just might take you all the way back.

3. IT'SUGAR

IT'SUGAR: New York-based chain of confectionaries with two major locations (plus pop-up shops and outlet stores) in Times Square, Coney Island and other tourist hotspots. What this candy emporium simultaneously lacks in authentically old-timey substance it makes up with a fun-loving twist on classic novelty shop experiential elements. Specialising in gummies, candy bars and other novelty candies, IT'SUGAR is a force of pop-cultural personality and prized as a home to a wide array of frivolous gift items and lifestyle products. It has something to offer candy enthusiasts looking for large-scale, Maximum Overload sweet novelty candies as well as the equally confection-inclined who seek out more novel merchandising items like novelty apparel and accessories, collectibles, plus a bevy of other giftable delectables of the non-edible variety.

4. Sugarfina

For customers with a clear preference for how their candy should be styled, Sugarfina offers an upscale experience. The luxury boutique candy store – which now has brick-and-mortar locations across the United States – carefully curates its artisanal confections and packages them with an air of hipster sophistication. Inside, you'll find champagne gummy bears, rosé goblet gummies, and other diffidently chic bites, all accompanied by stylish packaging that reflects the vibe of the surrounding shop. The experience at Sugarfina leans into the same aesthetic sensibilities as many contemporary holistic wellness practices – it's fancy, it's uniformly attractive, and the items are all carefully crafted to meet certain expectations about refinement, taste, and appealing to consumer guilt.

5. Sockerbit

Got the hankering for a taste of Sweden in the middle of New York City? Go no further than Sockerbit, a Scandinavian-inspired candy shop that sells colourful, all-natural candies made with real fruit flavours, and without artificial ingredients. You'll find fruity gummies and licorice ropes among lots of other sweets. But that's not all: the decor is spare and Scandinavian Deco, too. The colours are subdued and the lines clean and elegant. So, whether or not you're a fan of Swedish candy, if you like good sweets, check out Sockerbit.

Conclusion:

New York is paradise for all you candy fiends out there. From standard candyland stores littered throughout the city's shopping districts, to rarefied, eclectic and upscale gourmet emporiums: whether it's sweet nostalgics, sugar godliness or trite novelty you seek, the Big Apple candy store will not disappoint. Here are our picks for the best candy stores in New York City.