Research /Research
The Best Weed Stores in the Tri-State Aren't in New York
We ranked all 945 licensed dispensaries in New York and New Jersey on one list. New Jersey has a third of the stores — and 18 of the top 25.
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New York has 634 licensed dispensaries. New Jersey has 311.
You'd assume the bigger state wins. It does, barely — New York sold about $1.2 billion of legal cannabis in the first eight and a half months of 2026 against New Jersey's $995 million. Eighteen percent more, from twice the stores and twice the people.
Then we put every dispensary in both states on a single list, ranked by sales, and the picture inverted.
One list, 945 stores
New Jersey holds 33% of the stores on that list and 72% of its top 25.
| # | Dispensary | Sales, Jan 1 – Sep 15 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🟦 NY | Strain Stars – Farmingdale | $47,725,960 |
| 2 | 🟦 NY | Happy Days Dispensary | $44,123,818 |
| 3 | 🟧 NJ | Ascend Cannabis – Rochelle Park | $33,782,880 |
| 4 | 🟧 NJ | Zen Leaf – Neptune Township | $25,567,693 |
| 5 | 🟧 NJ | Apothecarium – Phillipsburg | $23,895,939 |
| 6 | 🟧 NJ | Ascend Cannabis – Fort Lee | $23,110,018 |
| 7 | 🟧 NJ | Indigo | $20,771,425 |
| 8 | 🟧 NJ | Curaleaf – Bellmawr | $20,197,774 |
| 9 | 🟧 NJ | Zen Leaf – Lawrence | $19,727,485 |
| 10 | 🟧 NJ | The Social Leaf | $18,555,901 |
| 11 | 🟧 NJ | Nirvana Dispensary | $17,376,793 |
| 12 | 🟦 NY | The Travel Agency – Downtown Brooklyn | $16,144,324 |
| 13 | 🟦 NY | The Travel Agency – Union Square | $15,281,470 |
| 14 | 🟧 NJ | NJ Leaf – Freehold | $13,419,717 |
| 15 | 🟧 NJ | Hashery – Hackensack | $13,380,086 |
| 16 | 🟧 NJ | RISE – Bloomfield | $13,033,088 |
| 17 | 🟦 NY | Long Island Cannabis Club | $12,850,140 |
| 18 | 🟧 NJ | Curaleaf – Bordentown | $12,661,861 |
| 19 | 🟧 NJ | Valley Wellness | $11,840,299 |
| 20 | 🟧 NJ | AYR – Woodbridge | $11,482,904 |
| 21 | 🟧 NJ | Curaleaf – Edgewater Park | $11,452,730 |
| 22 | 🟦 NY | Strain Stars – Riverhead | $11,084,176 |
| 23 | 🟧 NJ | Zen Leaf – Elizabeth | $11,070,895 |
| 24 | 🟧 NJ | RISE – Paterson | $10,901,862 |
| 25 | 🟦 NY | Planet Nugg | $10,203,318 |
New York takes gold and silver. Then New Jersey takes eight of the next nine. Go further down and it doesn't correct: the combined top 50 is 34 New Jersey stores to 16 New York, and the top 100 is 61 to 39.
Line the two top-25s up against each other and the gap is not subtle.
| New York | New Jersey | |
|---|---|---|
| Top 25 combined | $290,276,520 | $377,994,375 |
| Share of own state | 23.9% | 38.0% |
| Average per store | $11,611,061 | $15,119,775 |
| Median store | $8,200,451 | $12,661,861 |
| Biggest store | $47,725,960 | $33,782,880 |
| 25th store | $5,869,151 | $8,680,442 |
| Biggest ÷ 25th | 8.1× | 3.9× |
New Jersey's twenty-five best stores earn $87.7 million more than New York's — about 30% more — from a state market that is 18% smaller overall.
Look at the last row. New York's top tier is a cliff: its biggest store is eight times its twenty-fifth. New Jersey's is a plateau — three point nine. New York has one spectacular store and a steep drop. New Jersey has two dozen very large ones.
Here's the stat that lands hardest: twenty New Jersey dispensaries have sold more than $10 million this year. New York, with twice as many stores, has eight.
And New Jersey's 25th-best store would slot in at number 11 in New York.
So New Jersey limits licenses, right?
That's the natural explanation. Fewer permits, bigger stores, everybody wins except the people who wanted a permit.
It's wrong.
| New York | New Jersey | |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 20.0M | 9.5M |
| Dispensaries | 634 | 311 |
| Stores per million people | 31.7 | 32.6 |
The two states license dispensaries at almost exactly the same rate per person — a 3% difference. New Jersey didn't build a market of giants by choking supply. It licensed the same number of stores per head as New York did.
The difference is what got built. A typical New Jersey dispensary sells about 67% more than a typical New York one. Run the math on the whole gap in spending per resident and store count explains roughly 3% of it. Store productivity explains the rest.
Chains versus corner shops
This is the actual dividing line, and you can see it from the sidewalk.
Ascend runs three stores in New Jersey. Those three account for 6.6% of the entire state.
The Flowery runs twelve stores in New York. Those twelve account for 2.25%.
New York actually has more chain locations — 175 of its 634 stores fly a multi-store banner, against 61 of New Jersey's 311. New Jersey's chains are just enormous. Six banners — Ascend, Zen Leaf, Curaleaf, Apothecarium, AYR and RISE — occupy 15 of the state's top 25 slots.
New Jersey built a market of flagships on highways. New York built a market of neighborhood shops. Both are legal, both are growing, and they produce completely different store economics.
You can watch it in the concentration numbers:
| Share of state held by… | New York | New Jersey |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10 stores | 15.4% | 21.7% |
| Top 25 stores | 23.9% | 38.0% |
| Top 100 stores | 49.2% | 75.5% |
In New Jersey, a hundred stores are three-quarters of the market. In New York, a hundred stores are half of it — and 42% of New York dispensaries have sold under a million dollars all year.
What's exactly the same
Two things came out identical in both states, and they're the most human findings in the data.
Friday. Here's the share of the week each day takes, New York and New Jersey side by side:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NY | 12.7% | 13.0% | 13.7% | 14.6% | 18.3% | 15.5% | 12.1% |
| NJ | 12.3% | 12.6% | 13.7% | 14.6% | 18.2% | 16.1% | 12.5% |
Two states. Two sets of rules. Two totally different retail landscapes. And the week matches to within half a percentage point on every single day. Friday is 50% bigger than Sunday in both. Whatever makes Friday the day, it isn't regulation — it's us.
The blizzard. On Friday January 23 and Saturday January 24, both states had two of their biggest sales days of the year. Then:
| Fri Jan 23 | Sat Jan 24 | Sun Jan 25 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NY | $6.5M | $6.3M | $1.2M |
| NJ | $6.1M | $5.9M | $0.5M |
The National Weather Service logged a major winter storm across the region on January 25–26. New Jersey fell to 13% of a normal day. The entire tri-state stocked up on Friday and Saturday and then didn't leave the house.
It's the most legible consumer behavior in the whole dataset, and both states did it in perfect unison.
What each state actually buys
| New York | New Jersey | |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-rolls | 31% of units | 27% |
| Flower | 21% | 26% |
| Vapes | 19% | 20% |
| Edibles | 17% | 18% |
| Beverages | 5% of units | under 1% |
New Jersey is a flower state. New York is a pre-roll state — and, quietly, a drinks state. One in twenty things sold in New York is a beverage. Across the river, almost nobody is buying them.
Where it's heading
New York is growing faster — and in both states, every dollar of that growth came from people buying more, not paying more.
| New York | New Jersey | |
|---|---|---|
| Sales per day, January | $3,986,957 | $3,441,552 |
| Sales per day, August | $5,180,764 | $4,133,249 |
| Growth | +29.9% | +20.1% |
| Units per day | +39.4% | +27.1% |
| Average price per item | −6.8% | −5.5% |
Both markets grew. The price of everything in them fell. That is what a maturing cannabis market looks like from the inside, and it has a blunt consequence for anyone running a store: hold your unit volume flat and your revenue goes down.
That's the part worth sitting with, wherever you are in this business. Two markets, a bridge apart, both growing, both getting cheaper. New York is the younger one, still adding stores, still discounting, still fragmented — and still the one with room at the top.
New Jersey's top tier already looks built.
What to take from it
If you shop in either state: the store you walk into in New Jersey is, on average, doing two-thirds more business than its New York equivalent — but you're paying about the same per item. $35.73 against $35.21. The size gap isn't showing up on the price tag.
If you run a store in New York: 42% of New York dispensaries have sold under a million dollars this year, against 33% in New Jersey. The middle of the New York market is thinner, and the top of it is more reachable — New York's hundred biggest stores are half the state, where New Jersey's are three-quarters.
If you're siting one: both states license at the same rate per head, so New Jersey's numbers aren't the product of a closed door. What separates them is format. Large-format stores on highways versus neighborhood shops.
If you're watching the money: New Jersey is the more concentrated market on every measure — top 10, top 25, top 50, top 100 — and its leaderboard is mostly multi-state operators. New York is the fragmented one, still adding stores, still deflating. Those are two different bets.
Sales figures are estimated retail sell-through from third-party analytics covering every licensed dispensary in both states, January 1 – September 15, 2026, on matched date windows. Dollar totals are estimates and differ modestly from each state's own reported figures; the rankings, shares and comparisons within each state are the firmest numbers here. Population figures are US Census Bureau estimates for July 1, 2025. Storm dates confirmed against National Weather Service records.
Words by Greg Silverstein · @newyork420week · @sourcatjack
