The Candy Wizard

The Candy Wizard is an independent nostalgic-candy and souvenir shop inside the City Market at 400 Grand Blvd in Kansas City’s River Market. Owners John Stein and Mark DeShazar rebranded their existing City Market gift shop into a candy store, which the business dates to 2015. It carries salt water taffy, rock candy, chocolate bars, retro and imported sweets, and Kansas City souvenirs.

Description

The Candy Wizard is a candy store inside Kansas City’s Historic City Market at 400 Grand Boulevard, in the River Market district. The City Market’s merchant listing describes “a colorful selection of sweets, nostalgic treats, and novelty candy,” noting the shop “is known for carrying many of the classic candies people remember from childhood along with unique and hard-to-find sweets that are difficult to find in traditional retail stores.”¹

The shop’s own site describes it as “an industry leading Candy Store founded in 2015” and adds that “the owners have been operating a store in this same location for 18 years” — a reference to the gift-shop business that preceded the candy rebrand.² The venue listing gives the origin story from its own side: “The Candy Wizard opened in 2015 after the Historic City Market surveyed customers about what types of businesses they wanted to see downtown. One of the most popular requests was a family-friendly candy store, and the owners stepped in to bring that idea to life.”¹

Alongside confectionery, the store carries Kansas City souvenirs and locally made packaged goods — barbecue sauces, jams, butters, popcorn and hot sauces — plus regional apparel, toys, games and personalized gifts.¹² The venue listing also notes a “Sick and Sour” section stocked with intense sour candies such as Warheads and Toxic Waste.¹

The Candy Wizard is one of several independent City Market retailers in the Registry, alongside level-one-game-shop, kc-soda-co and dutch-flowers.

Ownership and history

The Candy Wizard is owned by John Stein and Mark DeShazar. Feast Magazine, in a January 26, 2018 piece by Jenny Vergara, states: “A few years ago, now-newlyweds John Stein and Mark DeShazar saw that City Market was fast becoming a food-focused shopping destination, and decided to tweak their gift-shop inventory toward something sweeter, and rebranded as The Candy Wizard.” A photo caption in the same article reads “Owners John Stein and Mark DeShazar.”³

That account reconciles with both first-party sources: the shop’s own site dates the founding of The Candy Wizard to 2015 while stating the owners had been operating a store in the same location for far longer, and the City Market’s listing attributes the 2015 opening to a customer survey in which a family-friendly candy store was among the most-requested businesses.¹² The business is therefore best understood as a 2015 rebrand and repositioning of an older owner-operated City Market gift shop rather than a new tenancy.

“ — the founding year of the predecessor gift shop. The shop’s site says “18 years” in the same location, but the site’s own copyright notice reads 2022 and the statement carries no date, so it cannot be anchored to a specific year without inventing one. No year is published here.

Products / What they sell

This is a retail store, not a restaurant: menu_status: na. Although the merchandise is edible, the shop sells packaged goods off a shelf and has no menu; the analogous artifact is a product range. Everything below is taken from the venue listing or the shop’s own site. No item list is reconstructed and no prices are published — none were recoverable on 2026-08-13, and no price is estimated.

Confectionery:

• Over 100 flavors of salt water taffy¹²
• 15 varieties of rock candy¹²
• More than 85 chocolate bars¹²
• Hundreds of classic and nostalgic candies¹²
• Gummies and sour treats, including a “Sick and Sour” section stocked with Warheads and Toxic Waste¹
• Imported candy from around the world¹²
• Sugar-free candy options¹²

Kansas City souvenirs and local goods:

• Locally made barbecue sauces, jams, butters, popcorn and hot sauces¹²
• Kansas City souvenirs and regional apparel¹²

Toys and gifts:

• Toys, games, novelty gifts and personalized gifts¹²

Historical product detail, dated and not current: Feast Magazine reported in January 2018 that the selection then included “72 kinds of saltwater taffy in traditional flavors such as peppermint and banana, plus wild new ones like chicken and waffles, carrot cake and buttered popcorn,” and retro items including Zotz, Pop Rocks, Atomic Fireballs, Chick-O-Stick, Good & Plenty and Bit-O-Honey.³ The 72 figure is a 2018 count and is superseded by the “over 100” flavors both current sources give.

Operating status

Active. Evidence of current operation on 2026-08-13:

• The shop’s own site at thecandywizard.com resolves and serves content (HTTP 200), publishing a current address, phone, email, hours and product range.² Its footer copyright reads 2022, so the site is not itself proof of 2026 activity.
• City Market merchant page — resolves (HTTP 200) and carries an embedded schema.org dateModified of 2026-03-26, i.e. the landlord was maintaining this merchant’s listing five months before the check.¹
• Instagram @thecandywizard resolves as an active public account under the shop’s name.⁴

The venue’s March 2026 listing maintenance is the strongest dated signal available on this pass. “ — dated first-party 2026 content from the business itself (a post, an event, or a refreshed site) would upgrade this from provisional to firm.

Disputes

Suite number — 414B vs. 414. The City Market’s merchant listing places the shop at “400 Grand Boulevard, Suite 414B.”¹ The shop’s own site gives “400 Grand Blvd, Suite 414, Kansas City, MO 64106.”² The base street address, city and ZIP are firm; the exact suite designation is “. Both are recorded.

Hours. The shop’s own site publishes Sunday 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday 10 a.m.–4 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m.² The venue listing gives daily 10 a.m.–5 p.m.¹ First-party is normally preferred, but the shop’s site carries a 2022 copyright and may be stale, while the venue listing was modified in March 2026. Neither is adopted as authoritative; both are recorded and the field is marked conflicting.

Surname spelling. The owner surname is rendered “DeShazar” in the Feast Magazine article, which is the only source opened and read for the owners’ names and is what this page uses.³ A “DeShazer” spelling appeared in search-result listings that were not opened; per this Registry’s sourcing rule, no fact is taken from an unopened result, so the variant is noted here but not asserted. “ — a second opened source confirming the spelling.

Sources

Links

• Website: https://www.thecandywizard.com/
• City Market listing: https://thecitymarketkc.org/merchants/the-candy-wizard/
• Instagram (association partial): https://www.instagram.com/thecandywizard/

Footnotes

1. The City Market — official merchant listing, “The Candy Wizard | Nostalgic Candy Store | Kansas City” — asserts: The Candy Wizard is a listed City Market merchant located in Kansas City’s Historic City Market; address 400 Grand Boulevard, Suite 414B; phone (816) 221-6161; hours daily 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; “The Candy Wizard opened in 2015 after the Historic City Market surveyed customers about what types of businesses they wanted to see downtown. One of the most popular requests was a family-friendly candy store, and the owners stepped in to bring that idea to life.”; product range including over 100 flavors of salt water taffy, 15 varieties of rock candy, more than 85 chocolate bars, hundreds of classic and nostalgic candies, imported candy, sugar-free options, a “Sick and Sour” section stocked with Warheads and Toxic Waste, and Kansas City souvenirs and locally made products including BBQ sauces. Page source carries schema.org datePublished 2018-11-28 and dateModified 2026-03-26. Does not name the owners. (Retrieved 2026-08-13.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸

2. The Candy Wizard — official site — asserts: “The Candy Wizard is an industry leading Candy Store founded in 2015. The owners have been operating a store in this same location for 18 years.”; address 400 Grand Blvd, Suite 414, Kansas City, MO 64106; phone (816) 221-6161; email thecandywizard.kc@gmail.com; hours Sunday 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday 10 a.m.–4 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; product range including over 100 flavors of salt water taffy, 15 flavors of rock candy, 85 different chocolate bars, hundreds of classic candy items, import and sugar-free candy, local BBQ sauces, jams, butters, popcorn and hot sauces, souvenir items and apparel, and toys, games and personalized gifts; footer copyright year 2022. Does not name the owners. Confirmed serving HTTP 200 on 2026-08-13. (Retrieved 2026-08-13.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

3. Feast Magazine — “The Candy Wizard Offers an Impressive Selection of Treats in Kansas City,” by Jenny Vergara, January 26, 2018 — asserts: “A few years ago, now-newlyweds John Stein and Mark DeShazar saw that City Market was fast becoming a food-focused shopping destination, and decided to tweak their gift-shop inventory toward something sweeter, and rebranded as The Candy Wizard.”; photo caption “Owners John Stein and Mark DeShazar”; 2018-era selection of 72 kinds of saltwater taffy including chicken and waffles, carrot cake and buttered popcorn; retro items Zotz, Pop Rocks, Atomic Fireballs, Chick-O-Stick, Good & Plenty, Bit-O-Honey. Does not state a founding year. The live URL returned HTTP 429 on 2026-08-13; the text above was read from the Internet Archive capture at web.archive.org (captured 2019-02-01, retrieved 2026-08-13). ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. The Candy Wizard — Instagram, @thecandywizard — asserts: a public account exists under the display name “The Candy Wizard” at the handle thecandywizard, with 86 posts as retrieved. The account’s own page metadata does not independently state a Kansas City address, so the association with this shop is marked partial rather than verified. (Retrieved 2026-08-13.) ↩