What You'll Find In The World's First Sour Patch Kids Store

Despite looking like the love children of Bart Simpson and a slightly melted crayon and sounding like a description of Cabbage Patch Kids that have entered their terrible twos, Sour Patch Kids are out of this world. In fact, they used to be extraterrestrials. As Mental Floss describes, when those delightfully edible children were born in the 1970s, they were initially christened "Martian Men." Perhaps it had something to do with the dead-eyed, Pod-People-like expressions on their faces. Or you could go with Mental Floss's explanation: The candies' Canadian creator, Jaret International, was piggybacking on the public's fascination with UFOs.

When the Martian Men landed on U.S. soil in 1985, they ditched the mothership and jumped on the bandwagon of the popular Cabbage Patch Kids. Who knows whether their popularity would have taken off like a rocket if they had remained Martians? But when a store devoted to the now-beloved candy opened in New York City in 2020, maybe it would have been called Area Fifty-Wonderful and had a cosmic theme. The Sour Patch Kids store that greeted earthlings instead sounds quite a bit different.

The Sour Patch Kids store comes in peace and as part of a duo. The Takeout reports that the brand teamed up with the company, It's Sugar, for this endeavor. It sounds like a missed opportunity to call the store Sweet and Sour, but oh well, but you won't find any sour grapes on our part - those are sold at Sam's Club. You might imagine that the non-Martian-themed store is more down-to-earth than the galactic alternative might have been, but the 3,300-square-foot newcomer sounds pretty out-there.

The store turns New York into the Big Sour Apple, which is usually more bitter if you ride the subway. There's a gigantic blue Sour Patch Kid styled after the Statue of Liberty and Sour Patch Kids in a full-sized Taxi that people can pose with. You'll also find merch and probably more candy than you can wag a tongue at. The Sour Patch Kids store has reimagined various classic desserts, promising an array of cookies, cookie dough, smoothies, ice cream, cotton candy, and other treats. All face puckering sourness might sound like a surefire way to kiss comfort goodbye and say hello to burning tongue pain. But hey, no pain, no gain. And Sour Patch Kids hurt so good.