BonBon - A Swedish Candy Co.
Candy store · Lower East Side ·
Swedish pick-and-mix candy store with imported gummies, licorice, and chocolates.
Swedish pick-and-mix candy store with imported gummies, licorice, and chocolates.
"For specialty candies to decorate a gingerbread house, I look to BonBon Candy, whose baggies of Swedish-inspired candies are 20% off for the holidays." - Francky Knapp
"With a variety of outlets in NYC, BonBon peddles candy specialties imported from Sweden. Many are gummies of one hue or another, in various novel shapes, including the vaunted Swedish fish, but other flavors, including sour and salty, are less familiar. Other specialties include licorice pipes and miniature flavored marshmallows, everything sold by the pound. The Williamsburg location is fittingly across from the movie theaters, but the BonBon Red Hook headquarters has a hot dog pop-up on the weekends." - Robert Sietsema
"It’s easy to understand why this excellent Swedish candy store, with multiple locations, has a cult following. Not only do they sell hard-to-source treats with unique textures and vibrant flavors, but everything about BonBon is aesthetically pleasing, down to the pale pink paper bags and gold scoops. The candy (marshmallows, licorice, nougat, chocolate, and more) costs $4.50 per quarter pound. We haven’t tried anything here we wouldn’t gladly shove fistfuls of into our mouths, bags and pockets, but some highlights include the cloud-soft marshmallow mushrooms, the brain-zappingly sour raspberry pucker bottles, and the sour Rambo strawberry licorice tubes, filled with vanilla cream." - molly fitzpatrick, will hartman, willa moore
"This Swedish candy store, with locations on the LES, Williamsburg, Red Hook and the Upper East Side, has a cult following, and it’s easy to understand why. Apart from the fact that they sell adorable, hard-to-source treats with unique textures and vibrant flavors, everything about BonBon is aesthetically pleasing, down to the pale pink paper bags and gold scoops—like the handiwork of a girly-pop Willy Wonka. The candy here—marshmallows, licorice, nougat, chocolate, and more—costs $4.50 per quarter pound. Expect to quickly lose your grasp on any concept of money, or what constitutes a reasonable quantity of sweets for one human being to consume. We haven’t tried anything at BonBon that we wouldn’t gladly shove fistfuls of into our mouths, bags, pockets, and other conceivable candy-transporting vessels. But highlights include the butterbeer-adjacent caramel twists, cloud-soft marshmallow mushrooms, brain-zappingly sour raspberry pucker bottles, green-apple fizzy frogs, and—our favorite— sour Rambo strawberry licorice tubes, filled with vanilla cream. photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff Pause Unmute BonBon is open until midnight—a good potential epilogue to a drinks or dinner date. You may find them sold out of particularly internet-famous treats, like foamy Bubs ovals and sour cola skulls, but the friendly staff are quick to offer suggestions and free samples. Keep in mind that cute as it is, this small storefront can sometimes feel claustrophobic, especially when customers dissociate into a candy reverie, standing in place, transfixed by a tub of cat-shaped gummies." - Molly Fitzpatrick
"A Swedish pick-and-mix candy shop that has become a Lower East Side nighttime habit, drawing long lines even at 10 p.m. rather than operating like a typical trendy restaurant or cocktail bar. Launched in 2018, the operation leans on Swedish candy culture—the lördagsgodis tradition—and stocks a wide range of imported sweets sold by weight, from salty black licorice and classic red gummy fish to mouth-puckering grapefruit gummy shrimp and foamy raspberry gummy ovals. The store’s bubblegum-pink packaging and decor contribute to its appeal as a small ritual or ‘treat-yourself’ outing; one customer’s TikTok of her weekly trips amassed over a million views and triggered a massive online sales surge. The viral attention multiplied e-commerce orders overnight (from roughly a few dozen to more than a thousand in a day), strained inventory (necessitating flying in shipments on short notice), and forced the company to scale fulfillment from one or two people to a 15-person, six-day-a-week operation, while boosting national shipping alongside continued local retail business." - Bettina Makalintal