Research /Research
Brooklyn Has the Biggest Dispensary in New York City and the Thinnest Middle
One store on Flatbush Avenue does $16.2 million — more than any shop in Manhattan. Behind it, 44 of Brooklyn's 83 dispensaries haven't cleared a million dollars all year.
Watch the story
Brooklyn's 83 licensed dispensaries sold $114,344,677 between January 1 and September 15 — the second-largest borough market in New York City, serving its largest population at 2,653,963 people.
That works out to $43.08 per resident, against Manhattan's $132.92 and Staten Island's $52.59.
But the story in Brooklyn isn't the total. It's the distribution.
The city's number one store is in Brooklyn
| # | Dispensary | Sales | Share of Brooklyn | Avg price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Travel Agency – Downtown Brooklyn | $16,169,182 | 14.1% | $41.77 |
| 2 | Misha's Flower Shop | $5,845,106 | 5.1% | $30.42 |
| 3 | Kaya Bliss – Bay Ridge | $5,349,386 | 4.7% | $38.12 |
| 4 | Beleaf – Brooklyn | $3,285,146 | 2.9% | $34.76 |
| 5 | OC Dispensary | $2,947,388 | 2.6% | $37.35 |
| 6 | Hii | $2,803,053 | 2.4% | $33.70 |
| 7 | Forever 420 | $2,717,171 | 2.4% | $29.27 |
| 8 | Matawana | $2,711,415 | 2.4% | $31.47 |
| 9 | Twenty8gramz | $2,593,450 | 2.3% | $38.17 |
| 10 | Yerba Buena (Rec) | $2,554,211 | 2.2% | $30.49 |
The Travel Agency's Downtown Brooklyn store is the single biggest dispensary in New York City — $16,169,182, ahead of its own Union Square location ($15,306,014) and ahead of anything in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx or Staten Island.
It moved 387,055 units at $41.77 each. It is, by itself, 14.1% of the entire borough.
Then the floor drops. Brooklyn's number two store does barely a third of its number one. Its number four does a fifth.
The thinnest middle in the city
| Median store | Under $1M | Share of stores | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manhattan | $1,827,751 | 27 of 95 | 28% |
| Brooklyn | $934,235 | 44 of 83 | 53% |
| Queens | $914,810 | 40 of 72 | 56% |
| Bronx | $1,133,893 | 7 of 19 | 37% |
| Staten Island | $1,176,869 | 6 of 14 | 43% |
More than half of Brooklyn's licensed dispensaries have not sold a million dollars this year — with eight and a half months gone.
Brooklyn's median store does about half what Manhattan's does. Its average is dragged upward by one giant: take The Travel Agency out and the remaining 82 stores average $1,200,854.
This is the most bimodal borough in New York City. One flagship, a handful of real businesses, and a long tail of shops splitting a market of 2.65 million people 83 ways.
Brooklyn is a flower borough
| Category | % of dollars | % of units | Avg price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flower | 35.8% | 23.8% | $50.69 |
| Vaporizers | 23.6% | 15.0% | $52.84 |
| Pre-rolls | 23.0% | 34.8% | $22.25 |
| Edibles | 12.4% | 16.8% | $24.88 |
| Concentrates | 2.2% | 1.3% | $56.61 |
| Beverages | 0.8% | 4.3% | $6.16 |
Flower is 35.8% of every dollar spent in Brooklyn, against 24.3% in Manhattan. Across the river, vapes lead. Here, flower leads by twelve points.
The two boroughs are eight minutes apart on the A train and they are buying different products. Flower needs somewhere to smoke it — a stoop, a yard, a roof, a window that opens onto something other than an airshaft. Manhattan's vape-and-edible mix is an apartment-size decision. Brooklyn's flower share is a housing-stock decision.
Brooklyn's edibles share (12.4%) sits below Manhattan's 15.2% and above Queens's 10.5%. Its beverage share by units, 4.3%, is the second-highest in the city.
Ruby Farms wins here — and only here
| Brand | Sales | Share | Avg price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby Farms | $4,849,970 | 4.50% | $37.61 |
| ayrloom | $3,476,103 | 3.23% | $20.89 |
| Rythm (GTI) | $3,299,059 | 3.06% | $64.76 |
| MFNY | $2,968,020 | 2.75% | $35.46 |
| Fernway | $2,957,521 | 2.75% | $63.72 |
| Jaunty | $2,728,745 | 2.53% | $44.02 |
| Find (Curaleaf) | $2,612,514 | 2.42% | $83.45 |
Brooklyn is the only borough in New York City that pushes ayrloom into second place — and the only one Ruby Farms wins outright. ayrloom leads Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx by dollars; here it runs second to Ruby Farms.
Ruby Farms takes 4.50% of Brooklyn dollars against 4.05% in Manhattan, 2.62% in Queens and 1.98% in the Bronx. This is its home market.
Note also what ayrloom costs here: $20.89 an item — against $25.87 in Manhattan and $31.63 on Staten Island. Only the Bronx sells it cheaper, at $19.44. Same brand, a 24% discount, eight minutes apart.
And Find (Curaleaf) at $83.45 is the most expensive brand in Brooklyn's top ten — more expensive than anything in Manhattan's.
715 brands recorded a sale in Brooklyn. The top ten hold 27.6% of dollars, the least concentrated brand shelf in the city after Manhattan's.
Growing steadily, from a low base
| Month | Sales per day |
|---|---|
| January | $396,440 |
| February | $421,463 |
| March | $421,402 |
| April | $412,963 |
| May | $438,347 |
| June | $470,786 |
| July | $463,289 |
| August | $491,455 |
| September (to the 15th) | $499,488 |
+24.0% from January to August, and unlike Manhattan — which peaked in June and has drifted since — Brooklyn's line is still climbing. September is its best month so far.
At 3.13 stores per 100,000 residents, Brooklyn is licensed at barely half Manhattan's density. With 2.65 million people and a median store under a million dollars, the constraint here isn't demand or permits. It's that too many of the existing shops are splitting neighborhoods too finely.
How Brooklyn behaves
Rain costs Brooklyn 3.8 points of a day — real, but well short of Manhattan's 6.0 and Queens's 5.3. On July 18's flash flooding Brooklyn came in at −10.3% while Manhattan was −17.0%.
Snow hits it least of the five. On February 23, Brooklyn did $156,210 against an expected $364,145 — down 57.1%, the mildest blizzard response in New York City. Manhattan was −66.0%, Queens −69.6%, Staten Island −96.1%.
And the Knicks barely registered. Brooklyn's game-night effect was −0.27 points, the smallest of any borough — which, given that Brooklyn has its own team and its own arena, is its own small joke.
4/20 did $672,700, up 96.3%, Brooklyn's biggest day of the year.
What to take from it
If you operate in Brooklyn: you're in the borough with the softest middle in New York City. Fifty-three percent of your competitors are under a million dollars, which means the market is not saturated with strong stores — it's saturated with weak ones. The gap between the median store and the top three is the widest opportunity in the city.
If you're siting one: look at where The Travel Agency isn't. Downtown Brooklyn is spoken for by a $16 million flagship. The borough's second and third stores are in very different places — Bed-Stuy and Bay Ridge — and both clear $5 million.
If you're a brand: Brooklyn buys flower, and it buys ayrloom 24% cheaper than Manhattan does. Price your value SKU for this borough and your premium SKU for across the river. Ruby Farms has already figured this out.
If you're watching the trend: Brooklyn is still growing where Manhattan has stopped, and it has a million more residents. On current slopes the gap closes.
Sales figures are estimated retail sell-through from third-party analytics covering all 83 licensed Brooklyn dispensaries, $114,344,677, January 1 – September 15, 2026 — 258 complete trading days; the final day of the export is a partial pull and is excluded. Brooklyn's series plus those of the other four boroughs sum exactly to the 283-store, $486,121,158 citywide total, which is the reconciliation check used to validate the split. Daily comparisons use a day-of-week-adjusted expectation built from a centered rolling trend. Population is the US Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimate for July 1, 2025 (2,653,963), as published by NYC Department of City Planning. Dollar totals are estimates and differ modestly from New York State's reported figures; shares, ratios and within-borough comparisons are immune to that scaling and are the firmest numbers here.
Sources: NYC Department of City Planning population estimates, July 2026 release · NWS New York significant weather events archive
New York 420 Week · Issue 09 · September 2026
Words by Greg Silverstein · @NewYork420week · @sourcatjack
