They Break the Candy on Purpose: Candy Stores in St. Louis Where You Watch It Made
Revised November 10, 2026
Where are the best candy stores in St. Louis?
The best candy stores in St. Louis let you watch the candy get made: Crown Candy Kitchen in Old North St. Louis, Merb’s Candies on South Grand, and the free Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company factory tour on The Hill. Across the river, Sapphire Candy Co. pulls hard candy by hand on a hook, with a grand opening November 28.
Keep reading ↓Crack. A warm sheet of hand-pulled hard candy is dropped while you watch and breaks into glassy pieces. At Sapphire Candy Co., the new candy shop across the river, this is the part people love: “loud, a little dramatic, and different every time,” in the shop’s own words. Then a cleanup shake knocks off the extra edges.
Where are the best candy stores in St. Louis?
Go where the candy is made in front of you: the free factory tour at the Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company on The Hill, the soda fountain at Crown Candy Kitchen in Old North St. Louis, and Merb’s Candies on South Grand. Across the river in Illinois, Sapphire Candy Co. pulls hard candy by hand on a hook, and its storefront opens November 28.
Here is the catch that wrecks holiday plans: the two candy kitchens on this list that let you watch never open on the same day. The free factory tour on The Hill runs Monday through Friday only, and Sapphire is open Saturdays and Sundays only, 11am to 5pm. So it’s two trips, not one: a weekday tour, then a weekend afternoon across the river, standing near a warm stove and waiting for the crack.
If you came for fine chocolate and wonder why a small box costs what it does, read why artisan chocolate in St. Louis costs more first. Then come back with a coat and an empty stocking.
A dentist, a candy maker and 68,655 boxes of Fairy Floss
Here’s the one to tell at the holiday table. Cotton candy was invented in Tennessee by a dentist and a candy maker, and St. Louis is where people were introduced to it, as Fairy Floss, at the World’s Fair. Their machine heated sugar in a spinning bowl until it turned into fluffy sugar strands. The floss was sold in small wooden boxes decorated with pictures of the fair, and a box cost half the price of a ticket into the fair. They sold 68,655 boxes anyway.
The name “cotton candy” came later, from a dentist in Louisiana. Two dentists in one candy story: save that one for the cousins.
Down on the factory floor on Pattison Avenue
Start at 5025 Pattison Ave, where over 50,000 visitors a year take the free tour. The Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company factory tour takes you down onto the factory floor, and the company’s own words are the honest pitch: you “can see, hear, smell and taste chocolates right in front of your eyes.” You walk past the candy kitchen and the chocolate enrobers, the machines that pour a curtain of chocolate over each center, and you watch candy makers hand make chocolates a few feet away. The same building is home to Bissinger’s Handcrafted Chocolatier, so two local names share one candy kitchen.
Tours run Monday through Friday only, 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., every half hour except from 12:00 to 12:30. Everyone in your group needs a reservation. A tour lasts 15 to 20 minutes and holds 20 people at most, so book before you promise anybody a weekday off school. They ask you to wear closed-toe shoes, you wear the tour hat they hand you the whole time, and you stay behind the yellow ropes. If anyone in your group has a food or nut allergy, say so when you book, because you are standing on the floor where the candy is made. Plan to arrive 5 to 10 minutes early; late arrivals may not be taken.
No tour on a Saturday? The Factory Store on The Hill, at the same 5025 Pattison Ave address, keeps Saturday hours of 9 AM to 3 PM, so you can buy from the same kitchen even when the floor is quiet. And the factory is closed on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, which catches families who plan a holiday-week visit with cousins in town.
The new hard-candy shop that started as Christmas gifts
Brandon Belvin did not plan to open a candy shop. On Sapphire Candy Co.’s own story page, the owner and head candymaker says he started by watching candy makers online and making candy to give away at Christmas. People liked it. He loved making it. Then, in his words, “I just ran out of people to give candy to.”
Now there is a front door at 212 East State Street in the Metro East, with a grand opening on November 28 and hours on Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 5pm. The shop says it cooks, pulls and drops all through open hours, so there is usually something happening when you walk in. Sugar comes up to temperature on the stove. The hot candy is poured out to cool just enough to handle, then pulled by hand on a hook, which works air into it until it turns glossy. It gets pressed into a flat sheet on a drop roller. Then comes the part kids will talk about in the car: the sheet is dropped and shatters into pieces, the crack at the top of this page.
A few things to know before you load the car. Samples are always free, so ask what is on the stove and ask to try something. The batch you watch get dropped may not be ready to buy yet, because it still has to be shaken clean, weighed and bagged. The building is over 100 years old, with stairs up to the front porch and no wheelchair access right now. They take cash and major credit cards. And the candy is not for sale online yet, so the shop, or one of the markets they still work around the Metro East, is the only way to get it into a stocking.
Is there still a candy counter that feels like your grandparents’ St. Louis?
If you have been searching for an old fashioned candy store in St. Louis, start with Crown Candy Kitchen at 1401 St. Louis Ave. in Old North St. Louis. Walk in and the first things you hear and see are the vintage jukebox, the Coca-Cola collectibles and the soda fountain. Crown Candy makes its own chocolate candy, and its own about page lists filling Christmas stockings as a reason to come in. The fourth generation now helps run the place. The candy list reads like a time capsule: Crown Candy Hash in milk or dark, snappers, molasses puffs, nonpareils, almond toffee and clusters of every nut you can name. Order a Butterscotch Malted or a Chocolate Phosphate at the fountain while the box gets packed, because all of the candy can be packaged to go. Crown Candy’s posted hours are 10:30AM to 5:00PM Monday through Saturday, and Sunday it is closed.
Then drive south to Merb’s Candies at 4000 S Grand Blvd. Merb’s says its doors have stayed open at the same location for over a century, it is female-owned and family-run, and its chocolates are handcrafted in small batches. The shop names its own best-known pieces: assorted chocolates, bionic apples, chocolate-covered strawberries and turtles. Its about page mentions customers who have eaten its sweets for seven decades. That is where you buy old fashioned candy that tastes like a memory somebody else in your family already has. One catch: Merb’s keeps short days, Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM.
Remember the phone book that thudded onto the porch every spring?
What does a one-Saturday candy route look like?
Read the hours side by side and one day lines up. Crown Candy, Merb’s and the factory store on The Hill all open on Saturday, and Sapphire opens its door on Saturdays and Sundays. Sunday is the trap: Crown Candy and the Factory Store on The Hill both list Sunday as closed, and Merb’s hours run Wednesday through Saturday.
So the route that works starts early on The Hill, because the Factory Store’s Saturday hours end at 3 PM. Swing to South Grand for Merb’s before its 4:30 PM close. Go north to Old North St. Louis for lunch, a malt and the stocking candy before Crown Candy’s 5:00PM close. Save Sapphire for Sunday afternoon, when Crown Candy is closed, and stand at a warm stove and listen for the drop. If Sunday is your only free day, Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate’s original shop at 6740 Chippewa St. in St. Louis Hills opens Sunday from 12 PM to 4 PM.
How do you fill a stocking from four counters?
Buy one thing from each counter, not a pile from one. A handful of hard candy you watched shatter. A small bag of Crown Candy Hash. A Merb’s turtle. One piece from the factory store whose kitchen your kid just stood next to in a tour hat. Each one comes with a story, and the story is what gets told at the table in January, long after the wrappers are in the trash.
Two practical notes. Chocolate does not love a hot car or a sunny dashboard, so if the stocking sits for a week, keep it somewhere cool and pack the chocolate apart from the hard candy. And if someone in the house has a nut allergy, ask at the counter before you buy, the same way the factory asks you before the tour, because handmade candy is made in kitchens where nuts are part of the work.
Planning the candy run around where you live? Start from your own part of town with St. Louis neighborhoods and nearby towns on St Louis Near Me Directory, and find the shops and stops close to home.
If you’re the candymaker with a pot on the stove and a line forming every December, families are typing “candy stores near me” right now, and you can get more customers from those searches when you list your business where they are already looking.
More sweet stops and holiday plans from St Louis Near Me Directory:
- How to plan a candy buffet in St. Louis
- What to order at Missouri Baking Co on The Hill
- The best Christmas lights in St. Louis for a family
Frequently asked questions about St. Louis candy stores
Is there an old fashioned candy store in St. Louis?
Yes. Crown Candy Kitchen at 1401 St. Louis Ave. in Old North St. Louis has a soda fountain and a vintage jukebox and makes its own chocolate candy, and Merb’s Candies at 4000 S Grand Blvd says it has stayed open at the same location for over a century. Check hours first: Crown Candy is closed Sunday and Merb’s opens Wednesday through Saturday.
Where can I buy old fashioned candy?
For old-style chocolates, go to Crown Candy Kitchen for Crown Candy Hash, molasses puffs, snappers and nut clusters, or to Merb’s Candies for turtles and assorted chocolates made in small batches. For hand-pulled hard candy, Sapphire Candy Co. sells at its Metro East storefront on weekends and at local markets; its candy is not sold online yet.
What candy is St. Louis known for?
Ask around and you will hear about Merb’s bionic apples, which the shop lists among its best-known treats with its turtles, and the chocolate candy Crown Candy Kitchen makes in-house. Fairy Floss, the treat we now call cotton candy, also has a St. Louis story: visitors met it at the World’s Fair here.
What candy was invented in St. Louis?
Cotton candy gets credited to St. Louis, but it was invented in Tennessee by a dentist and a candy maker. St. Louis is where people were introduced to it, as Fairy Floss, at the World’s Fair, where 68,655 boxes were sold.
Can you tour a chocolate factory in St. Louis for free?
Yes. Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company runs free factory tours at 5025 Pattison Ave., Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Everyone in your group needs a reservation, tours last 15 to 20 minutes, and the company asks you to wear closed-toe shoes.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.