Sugar Factory New York - Time Square — Restaurant in New York

Friend suggested this place, which is aesthetically pretty cool. I'm struggling with its ambition versus its reality: it's got really Neat ideas but I feel like it's also a very Times Square restaurant which may need more clarity on what it is. The details here seem murky.

Many people come for the desserts- I think they excel at these. Definitely consider milkshakes. They're AMAZING.

At the same time there are other things about this place which seemed concerning- a broken men's room with water on the floor; sticky floors overall, gross amounts of crumbs and food on the stairs in the back; what appeared like one very unhappy maitre d; insanely loud music at some points (when people ordered a $125 sundae, a song is chosen and played arguably too loudly); advertised, yet unavailable rubber duckie toys offered with a meal (kid was Bummed!), and a weird mishmash of foods, menus & selections, drinks, and dining areas.

It's got a number of distinct really promising features, too, though!

There's a bar up stairs and downstairs, there's gelatos, candies, dinner and desserts, and the dining area options could be great for small sizes day 4 or less, maybe dates. They also have fun menu ideas, which are pretty exciting like hot Cheeto burgers, chicken and waffles, and foot-long cheese sticks.

But this place isn't a steak house. It's not where I would order lobster. I'm not sure I'd buy a flight of shots in a large rubber duckie either. All of that's on the menu, though. After seeing stalls ordered, I'm glad I didn't. It's weird. And then the other options like a $150 gold leaf burger, the $125 sundae with a song-choice, and other foods with upgrades are kitschy (but exciting I'm sure for some)!

Ultimately, I think it's a 4 star establishment quickly aiming for a 3 if it continues to ignore a few basic issues:

Menus are too confusing, large, and jarring in terms of options. The dinner food options especially seem erratic. The drink options also are gigantic and just take too much time to read what the options worth trying are...

The restaurant feels LOST.

Oh

And they're running a TV show where they're checking at the end about how we felt about the experience etc And offered drinks to film us for their show and have a good time.

Meh. Might be very cool for others.

I think if there's a distinct thing you Should order, I'd say fries, burgers, pasta. The steaks looked... Suss. But like, if sweet cocktails are your thing or desserts, I think come for those!

It got an A restaurant grade but I'll be honest, I was surprised after eating there and seeing all of the above.

But if you want maximalist desserts, you could do worse than come here. Their shakes are actually insane and cool but I would recommend ordering a shake or cocktails and Maybe a burger. I think their desserts are their best feature but not for the faint-hearted.

Expect...

I’ve been to The Sugar Factory several times. I’ve visited the former NYC locations at the Meatpacking District and the location near W. 72nd Street. I’ve even visited Sugar Factories out of State. Can I just say this by far is one of THE WORST locations I’ve ever visited. I visited this location in late September 2025. When we arrived, we were greeted but the Hostess they were polite and put our cake in the fridge right away as we waited for the remainder of our party to arrive. Several members in our party needed to take the elevator in which staff was gracious enough to assist them. We were seated and waited for or waiter or any staff to come over and at least give us water. After about 20 minutes a staff member came over to inform us that our waiter just arrived and they should be with us shortly. Another 15 minutes passed I requested someone come over and at least serve us water and take our drink order. The person said they would be right back another 10-15 minutes passed by. I don’t blame our waiter Steven as he had just arrived for his shift. I’m disappointed in the staff that were there and even the manager should have been team players and stepped in until Steven was ready to attend to us. Many of the menu items that are posted online and not on the menu they have in the restaurant. Many of the items we ordered our waiter had to come back to tell us it was unavailable. This goes for both food and drinks. It probably took about another hour before we received our food. Being we were such a large party I also feel as though it was unfair for Steven to attend to us and the other patrons in our area. Many of our food was bland no type of flavor which was very disappointing. For such expensive dishes the food should have some type of flavor to it. My mother's salmon was overcooked and dry. Every Sugar Factory I’ve ever been to had candy section and memorabilia but nope not this one. It wasn’t even worth taking a picture of. The restaurant did take off the cake cutting fee and an additional amount from our bill because many of the items were unavailable. The ladies room is upstairs and the men’s room down in the basement. The ladies seemed like a restroom in a public location like a bus stop. The toilet tissue holders were hanging off the walls it was dirty, etc. The restaurant accepts cash and card. This location is accessible via public transportation. This was a horrible experience especially for my daughter’s birthday celebration. This location will never see me return I was very disappointed. I even felt embarrassed as I bragged about the restaurant to my family about...

I wanted to like The Sugar Factory so much but after the experience I had it left a bad taste in my mouth and I will never return to this location again. For starters if you want to have a chill dinner to celebrate your birthday or any birthdays I suggest you steer clear of any sugar factory as this place is 9 times out 10 filled with kids running around. The music is extremely loud, the section my family and I were seated wasn’t clean and the reservation system is a joke. I reserved for a party of 9 at 8:15pm. 2 of my guests canceled, when I got there I let the hostess know, no problem. She told me that the place was running behind with their reservations when I asked her how long would it be to be seated she couldn’t tell me. I tried to remain patient as it is Times Square, well we ended up waiting for an entire HOUR. I was ready to throw in the towel and go somewhere else to eat, until I saw a party of 10 people get seated before mine. When I asked the hostess why this was she told me it was because that party arrived a couple of minutes earlier than me. What? So what’s the point of making reservations? They have more of a first come first serve system than an actual reservations system. Our servers name was Cynthia who was nice but she would disappear for 20-25 minutes so the ordering process was excruciatingly long and slow. For appetizers we got the foot long mozzarella stick which was enough to feed all 7 of us, and although the mozzarella stick was good the middle of it was raw/not melted. For entrees I got the sweet and sour chicken noodle Thai which was really good! Really light and favorable. For drinks I got the Diosa Mimosa designed by Natti Natasha which was also very good. For dessert we ordered the brownie sundae which was also good. My check came out to $437 with 20% of gratuity included. And if I can be honest … it wasn’t $400 well spent. I’m willing to give this business another chance just in a different location because the food and drink were really good. I just feel like the Times Square location is very poorly managed. Overall by the time it was to order dessert I was already over the whole experience and was ready to go home. My reservation was for 8:15pm and I made it home at 1:30am all of that due to wait time at the front and the delay in ordering....