Marini’s Candies

Great little shop on the boardwalk. After indulging in the nearby seafood restaurants our sweet tooth was calling our name. As you walk near the entrance the chocolate aroma floats into your lungs and its intoxicating.
The first thing your eyes lay upon is the ice cream counter and menu. It looks like hallelujah!!!
The ice cream counter had a great selection of their ice cream and their was some homemade ice creams on the far right.
That’s what sold me!
«HOMEMADE» for 3.25 a scoop for a nice heaping scoop of Great Morgani and it had coffee with roasted coffee whole beans and chocolate chips! A perfect pick me up with a great kick of caffeine! It was definitely GREAT, perfect naming.
I highly recommend to come here for ice cream, skip the beach board walk tourist area and walk a bit further for this sweet shop!

Towards the end of the wharf but worth it. Delicious candy treats. Order a vanilla latte and scone both were amazing. The scone had blue berries, pecans and strawberry jelly yummy!

Would not recommend. The person handling our order messed up my friend’s drink and doesn’t know how to serve ice cream in a cup.

Marini’s is a favorite of mine whether for buying products and indulging in their yummy ice cream and fudge. Right as you walk in, the décor is very fun and the whole place smells delicious. If I had the stomach of the Grand Canyon, that would be quite dangerous.

I’m not a fudge person but the samples were tasty. Just had a chai latte and admired all the sweets. The staff was friendly.

Very professional and kind. High quality yummies with smile :-)

Love this place! We always stop when we are in Santa Cruz… the coffee is delicious, the candy is delicious especially the fudge the service is always wonderful, highly recommend!

I love Marini’s downtown. We are regulars. But the wharf one has serious staffing issues.
Went last night for an after dinner treat after a celebration dinner. Had to wave someone down to help us, even though we were the only customers in there. Received reluctant help from someone there. She did not know how to make our milk shake. Asked for the small piece of fudge we always get on top of our special shake at the Pacific Avenue one. She said it doesn’t come with it, and the begrudgingly grabbed a piece with her bare hands and shoved it into the strawhole of our shake. Got to the car and realized the cup was ¾ full. Never had this kind of experience before at Marini’s downtown, which is 5 stars and a gem. Don’t know if the wharf one is always like this or we just had a bad night.

Had the caramel mocha it was simply delicious. I also brought home some of their salt water taffy which were equally good. I wish I had tasted some of their other treats as well

Was very disappointed with my wife after the employee that was helping us refused to give us the same service as her coworker. As one of the employees was giving a large scoop of ice cream to a customer I asked if that was the one scoop. The employee that was helping us said «well. He makes big scoops and I can’t do the same for you because I will get in trouble if I do?» What??? Are you kidding me? Is this employee on some sort of drugs or something? I’ve never heard anyone say the same thing and gave us small little scoops and charged us the premium price for it. I hope the management can read this and take action. Your business is going to get bad rating with employees like this. I didn’t want to write any review for here but I’m still so mad that I had to.

Overpriced. Barely any bacon in their «chocolate covered bacon» and what there was tastes burnt; the chocolate jalapeño was friggin bland. Their should do something more with it, it needs a lil sumthin else either in it or on it.

This review is particular to the the location on the santa cruz municipal wharf (hereafter referred to as «The Wharf»). There’s another location downtown on Pacific ave. that has a different vibe.
So this is one of a regrettably few super cool awesome places on the wharf for food/​drink. Well if that food and drink is candy/​sugar related.
High points: they offer a full range of latte’s/espresso etc. which are better then anything else on the wharf or immediately nearby. Lavazza is the brand of coffee they use. You can watch the chocolates, cotton candy, candy apples and whatnot being made in the store as their production area is glassed in and entirely viewable. They carry a limited selection of Marianne’s Ice Cream-​which is a local brand and is soooooo good. There is strictly limited seating inside, which means you will probably be forced outside to eat with it’s horrible views of ocean and beach. HA! I’m just kidding. There is no such thing as horrible views of ocean and beach.
Low points: This location is not optimized for high volume sales. This doesn’t matter much on a medium crowd volume day when they are fully staffed. Otherwise making a purchase can be an experience similar to scoring a goal in rugby.
Parents: if you have small children, once you have identified what you need to purchase for them it might be good to to set them down outside the shop while you make said purchase. There is a lot of eye candy (literally) slung at just the right height to tempt children incessantly during the 5 – 10 minutes it’s going to take you to get out of there. This isn’t really an accident, and you may wind up with more then you intended to buy.

I drive from San Jose a couple Saturdays a month just to get sweets from the best place to get sweets. My favorite are the caramel apples. I usually get the Apple Pie caramel apple. Parking on the wharf really isn’t bad Saturday nights and if you just run in and drive back home parking is free. The most we paid was $ 2.00. I went a little crazy last weekend and bought chocolate, cotton candy (freshly spun) and caramel apples. I always buy enough for the whole weekend plus goodies for the rest of the family. Everyone that works here is very nice and they make awesome chocolate covered bananas and rich ice cream.
I would rather go here instead of Sea’s Candies and Powells Sweet Shop

Cute shop with lots of candy, snacks, and ice cream! Staff was very attentive and friendly. It has a small seating area that looks over the ocean. Definitely coming back here whenever I’m in Santa Cruz!

A great candy shop that is always a must stop for cinnamon candy apples.
Whenever we are having dinner on the Santa Cruz Wharf, my wife always has a Marini’s Cinnamon Candy Apple ($ 4.50) for dessert. While I’m not a fan of such things, she gets immense enjoyment from them. They also have lots of other very good candy treats which they make themselves. This is a family business that has been in Santa Cruz for 100 years. We have been enjoying their treats for many years.

I love me some Rocky road and it is very good here! Also tried the walnut brownie and while it was moist it was not great. It reminded me of the mass made Little Debbie style treats from the grocery store… very similar taste and texture. I was hoping for closer to homemade.
They have a large assortment of chocolates including some sugar free options. There is also an ice cream counter and although I didn’t try the ice cream, I did gain a pound just from smelling the waffle cones.
Walk to the end of the wharf and back and you might just burn off some of the calories from partaking in the sugary treats!

Marini’s is the candy shop of children’s (and adult’s) dreams.
They every single candy you can imagine from their famous salt-​water taffy, chocolate covered bacon (although i prefer their chocolate covered potato chips), jawbreakers, gummy animals, homemade marzipan, to UCSC gummy banana slugs. They also serve coffee, shaved ice, and ice cream. Be sure to stop by when you visit the Boardwalk and the Wharf!

Sugar rush in a room; loads of concessionary options that you can easily spend an hour deciding on what to get.
Plus, it’s «home» of the chocolate covered bacon.

Def of a tourist trap: But their fudge is really good albeit expensive.
Loved the peanut butter fudge, cookies and cream fudge, and the praline fudge.
Hate hate hate the salt water taffy… long story but trust me on this.

I was on the pier looking for a place to buy post-​cards, and this place entered my view. I walked in, and perused their counters. I saw an item every few feet that made me want one. So, I decided to do that. A cute girl behind the counter asked if I’d like anything. I asked her to follow me to the end of the counter. I started in the truffle-​section on the far left of the store.
I started with one Cake-​Batter truffle, and then saw a sign for salt-​water taffy. I asked for a quarter pound, and told her to surprise me with whatever flavors a quarter pound of taffy was. I then walked down a bit until I saw ‘chocolate covered bacon.’ Oooh yeah, «One of those please» Cute girl, «We have two kinds, milk chocolate covered, and dark chocolate with jalapeño.» To which I replied, «How can I decide on just one? I’ll have one of each!» I continued along the counter and saw ‘Rocky Road.’ Marshmallows covered in chocolate. Interesting, I went with ‘a piece.’ «Just cut that bit in half, I’ll take it.» I was amazed at my restraint, and I was nearly to the end of the counter. I asked cute girl for an iced coffee, and decided that would be a good second breakfast. I picked up a pin-​wheel for kicks and put that on the counter as well. my total bill was seventeen dollars. I then found a seat and waited for her to package everything up.
When the bag was placed in front of me, I opened it up and displayed everything on the table for inspection. (and a Unilocal photo) The truffle was first, it was a pretty little thing. Had a teeny jelly bean on top. Delicious! The bacon was next. The jalapeño was an unexpected taste. It was spicy enough for me to rush to the iced coffee to cool my mouth down. But surprisingly tasty. The sweet/​spicy/​salty combo was excellent. The salty/​sweet combo was also good from the milk chocolate covered bacon. After that, I was regrettably unable to continue. I was still quite full from first breakfast, and second candy breakfast just had no room to fit in my belly. As I continued to drink the iced coffee after I left the store, I discovered that they had used coffee to make the ice cubes they put in the Iced Coffee. That blew my mind. Great idea. I might pinterest the picture I took.
I will definitely come back to Marini’s next visit to Santa Cruz. Definitely.
I bought post cards at the store next door.