From ranch dressing soda to gag gifts and foreign candies, St. George’s newest candy store, Rocket Fizz, has something for everyone.
Rocket Fizz opened Oct. 26 at 245 Red Cliffs Drive, Suite 6, next to Jonny Roxx Jewelry store and Coldstone Creamery. It is the first of its kind in Utah.
Rocket Fizz owner Tazia Murie said she and her husband heard about the franchise in Las Vegas.
“We knew we wanted to open some kind of candy store,” she said. “We had looked at the website and this one seemed to have the whole package.”
Rocket Fizz boasts more than 8,000 different brands of soda and candy, ranging from the everyday, like Jones soda, to the weird and exotic, like scorpion suckers. Shelves and coolers are filled with unorthodox soda flavors including bacon, dragon’s drool, coffee, cucumber and cookie dough.
Emily Gardiner, a Rocket Fizz employee and junior dance major from Hurricane, said the store’s variety is mind-boggling.
“You can look around this store for hours and still not see everything,” Gardiner said.
Rocket Fizz’s candy comes from all over the globe, with the Japanese candy being the most recent addition. Murie said they are also expecting British and Canadian candy soon.
Rocket Fizz also has an entire section dedicated to salt water taffy. It offers two sizes of bags, which can be filled to the brim with taffy of your choice. Do you think your bag is full? If the employees don’t, they’ll encourage you to fill it up even further.
Murie said she recommends the butterscotch soda and old-fashioned chocolate bars.
“[The soda] is made by flying cauldron and looks like a Harry Potter label and almost tastes like the butter beer from Harry Potter,” she said. “The candy is a hard one, but the old fashioned ones you don’t see as often, and they’re really hard to get now.”
Murie lived in Washington County for six years before moving to Las Vegas, and she said she still has family in the area, which is why they chose St. George.
“We have a lot of connections here, so when we saw one of these in Las Vegas, we knew St. George had to have one.”
Murie said her favorite part about running the store is getting to sample everything as it comes in.
“I’m going to confess: just getting to try everything is so fun,” she said. “I love getting to suggest different flavors to people; it’s fun, too.”
Gardiner said Rocket Fizz’s novelty items are the bizarre sodas.
“I’ve tried both the buffalo hot wings (soda) and the ranch (soda), and they were both pretty gross, but people like to try interesting things, so they actually sell really well,” she said.
Murie said Rocket Fizz is unique because it’s more than just a candy or soda store.
“We sell gag gifts, and we do birthday parties and gift baskets,” she said, “We also sell big cut-out posters and the metal signs all over the walls.”
The signs have everything from old-school superhero logos like Batman, Spiderman and Captain America to the Wizard of Oz and quirky phrases.
She said people have come into the store for up to a half hour to just look around.
Murie said the No. 1 reason to come to Rocket Fizz is that the store always has new items coming in.
“If you came in last week, we’re going to have different stuff coming in the next week and the week after that, and it’s always going to be different and changing.”
Rocket Fizz is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
