The selection is less expensive and more interesting than those pre-packaged supermarket and drugstore bags.
Even better, these old-fashioned candy stores are small, family-owned businesses, so you are saving money at the same time you are helping keep small businesses in business. That’s what we call a two-fer.
These are the best NYC candy shops for loose candies and chocolates, sour candies, vintage candies, even custom imprinted candies to announce the birth of a boy or girl, or celebrate a Bar or Bat Mitzvah or Confirmation.
Buy by the piece or the pound, including mix-and-match. Just don’t tell your dentist.
Or, order online now to receive your order in time for Trick-or-Treating.
See also
Best NYC-area farms
for apple picking & pumpkin patches
NYC’s only corn maize is open in Queens
Economy Candy
This shop opened on the Lower East Side during the Depression to provide some sweetness to down-on-their-luck New Yorkers, and still in the same location and same family, operated now by third-generation owner Michell Cohen.
The specialty is old-fashioned candies at old-fashioned prices, stacked to the ceiling.
This is where to find bags of Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls, wax lips, jelly beans and M&M’s in every color of the rainbow including teal and cream, Jordan almonds, Turkish taffy and salt water taffy, vintage lunch boxes, and the largest selection of Pez dispensers on the planet.
When was the last time you saw a package of C. Howard’s violet scented gum? Wax fangs? Wax teeth?
Shop online by color, or by special occasion, such as Halloween.
There also are modern specialty candies, from M&M-like buttons imprinted with “It’s a BOY” to rock candy swizzle sticks in psychedelic colors.
- 108 Rivington Street (between Ludlow and Essex), 212- 254-1531
Economy Candy is included in my latest guidebook
100 Things to Do in NYC Before You Die
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to purchase an autographed copy
The Sweet Shop
Open since 2014 on the Upper East Side, and probably best known for its ice cream and fresh-baked doughnuts, but the retro candy is just as top shelf-worthy, and displayed neatly in vintage-style jars.
Choose loose candy like Jordan almonds, gumballs, nonpareils and gummy worms, along with tempting boxes of Sour Patch Kids, Chuckles, Lemonheads, giant gummy snakes, licorices, gums, and lollipops.
Open daily from 2pm.
- 404 East 73rd Street between York and First Avenues, 212-960-8685
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Sockerbit Sweet and Swedish
This West Village shop is named for its namesake candy, a little sugar cube-shaped marshmallow, which you can purchase here along with other Swedish favorites including licorices, hard candies, sour gummies and chocolates, including chocolate-covered pretzels.
Loose candy by the pound is displayed in Ikea-like Scandanavian-sleek acrylic bins.
- 89 Christopher Street near 7th Avenue South, 212-206-8170
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Fferins of Brooklyn
Pronounced fair-ins, the Welsh word for sweets, this family-owned shop opened in 2018 with a selection it describes as a trip down memory lane.
In addition to offering old-fashioned wax “fangs”, Starbar, Cracker Jack and other throwback brands, choices from this shop offers new-fashioned sweets and treats from local artisanal suppliers, including Blue Marble ice cream.
Candies are displayed on neat shelves, including rows of glass canisters filled with individually-wrapped candies you can mix and match by the ounce or pound.
- 438 7th Ave., between 14th and 15th Streets, Park Slope, Brooklyn
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It’s Sugar
The name says it all.
This is the only national chain on our list, but we are including it because it specializes in old-fashioned candy including giant Tootsie Pops and other oversized novelty treats, and oddities such as gummies shaped like hamburgers. Get your saltwater taffy fix from giant bins, to mix and match.
Or, save yourself the trouble of thinking and choosing and get the Nostalgic Large Retro Box filled with nearly three pounds of candies including strips of paper dots and Pop Rocks.
There are four locations in NYC, in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and more in the Tri-State area, including Rockland and Nassau.
- 1542 Third Ave, East Side
- 1870 Broadway, West Side
- 1232 Surf Ave., Coney Island
- Brooklyn Heights Plaza, 110 Joralemon St.
More Candy
There are two other well-known candy shops not on the NYC on the Cheap list, because they are not cheap:
Mini-chains Sugarfina and Dylan’s have excellent selections, but are over-priced in comparison with the locally-owned candy stores on our list.
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This article was first published in 2017 and has been updated for Halloween 2021.
Evelyn Kanter is a native New Yorker who has written for the NY Times, NY Daily News, NY Post, New York Magazine, and is a former on-air reporter for WCBS Newsradio 88 and WABC-TV Eyewitness News.
Evelyn Kanter also is the author of several NYC and Hudson Valley guidebooks, including my latest, 100 Things to Do in NYC Before You Die.
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