Dirty soda shops want to be the next Starbucks

When Jordan Myrick first moved to California in high school and heard about dirty sodas, she wasn’t the biggest fan.

“It was a weird thing,” Myrick said.

But in 2023, Myrick, who said she is “very passionate about soda,” visited Utah on a “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”-themed weekend trip. At a local store called Thirst, she tried a classic dirty soda combination: Dr Pepper with coconut cream and a raspberry syrup.

Now, “I’m begging them to open a location in Los Angeles,” she said.

Dirty soda is a non-alcoholic drink combined with creams, flavored syrups or fruit. The beverages are ingrained into Mormon culture in the Mountain West, where the faith prohibits consuming coffee and alcohol. But thanks to social media, Mormon mommy influencers and a new reality television show based in Utah, the sugary drinks are becoming more and more mainstream – and the stores popularizing them have the outsized expansion ambitions to match.

But some critics point out the drinks’ high sugar content and empty calories. And others question whether it’s just a temporary fad for the rest of the country. Having more than one sugary soda a day could put you at risk for obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, though both soda shops and their fans say you can customize the drink to be healthier, such as using sparkling water.

The intrigue of Utah culture bubbles under all of that carbonation. On one episode of the Hulu reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a group of moms in matching hair extensions and athleisure meet up at Swig, the holders of the“dirty soda” trademark. It’s the wives’ self-proclaimed “vice.”

“Six out of the seven days of the week, I’m having at least one 44-ounce soda,” said cast member Layla Taylor on the show. “I’m probably only going to live to like 50, but it makes me happy.”

Some people on social media have made videos recreating the moms’ complicated orders (44 ounces, sparkling water, sugar free coconut, sugar free vanilla, sugar free raspberry, sugar free pineapple, and coconut cream). Another on TikTok asked if Swig was the Mormon Starbucks.

Well, sort of.

“What we’re doing for soft drinks, it’s a little bit what Starbucks did for coffee,” Swig CEO Alex Dunn CEO told CNN. “People were drinking coffee before Starbucks came around, and obviously people were drinking soft drinks before Swig, but we’ve created this premium brand and experience around that.”

Dirty sodas are having their moment because, said Boston Consulting Group managing director Chris Goodchild, “increasingly people view them and are using them to fulfill indulgent treat aspects.”

The rapid popularity of soda shops is spilling over from the Mormon corridor, a pocket of the Western United States. Swig, founded in 2010, will be in 13 states by the end of the year and already has plans to open in two more in 2025. Its expansions are focused in the South – Florida, Kentucky and the Carolinas are among their plans – but Kansas, Indiana and Missouri in the Midwest also have or will have locations.

The company, which started 2024 with 61 stores, has ambitious plans to open 1,000 new stores over the next six to seven years. Swig is not a public company and did not share specifics of its financials.

While Swig appears to be the market leader by number of shops, competitors are catching up. FiiZ has opened around 60 shops, followed by Sodalicious at 25. Fast food drive-in Sonic began offering customers the Dr Pepper option to “make it dirty.” Coffee Mate even launched with Dr Pepper a limited-edition Coconut Lime creamer to make dirty sodas at home this year.

Dairy mixed with soda isn’t new for a good chunk of the world. In the Punjab region of South Asia, doodh soda (directly translated to milk soda) is a popular lemon-lime drink, especially during the fasting month of Ramadan. Persians indulge in doogh, a carbonated yogurt drink. Korean “Milkis” are fixtures in K-Towns and sell in a variety of flavors from banana to apple. And of course, there’s the classic American ice cream float, echoing back to the days of soda jerks who operated soda fountains in the 20th century.

Soft drink manufacturers themselves have tried selling milk and soda to American customers. Two years ago, Pepsi pushed a campaign to try the combination, calling it a “secret hack among Pepsi fans” and tapping Lindsay Lohan to be the face of “Pilk.”

But it’s the airy, drive-through soda shops – with drink names such as Poppin’ Pineapple and Unlucky Ducky – that have brought the concoctions to the front of the national consciousness.

And if there’s one thing the American consumer loves, it’s variety, Goodchild said. Stores such as Swig offer an overwhelming array of ways to express your silly drink preferences. On a diet? Replace Coke with a sparkling water. You can throw in a fresh lime, artificial syrups from raspberry to toasted marshmallow, and mix it in with a fruit puree, coconut cream, vanilla cream – or a combination of all three.

Like coffee chains such as Starbucks and Dutch Bros, consumers are attracted to a personalized experience.

“It’s almost a form of self-expression. This is is my drink, this is the thing that I want,” Goodchild said.

What surprised Myrick the most about dirty soda shops was the sheer quantity of choices.

“I really thought I was just going to go to a restaurant that only served Diet Coke with half and half in it,” Myrick said.

Swig’s demographic skews female and younger, from 18 to 45. Swig has certainly benefitted from their social media use, claiming that the majority of its features on social media are organic. Nara Smith, a Mormon social media personality and model, even taped herself trying the sweet drinks in her car.

The soda shops also cater to car-dependent cities and suburbs. Swig locations are only about 1,200 to 1,800 square feet, further underlying the chain’s drive-through focus – though that same model may not be as successful in big cities. Most other chains also feature drive-throughs.

Soda shops will have to continue to make the drinks relevant even once social media moves on, especially with such lofty growth goals.

“As it continues to rise, you’d anticipate either traditional players offering these kinds of things in their in their existing stores, or some traditional players who are expanding into new formats,” Goodchild said.

When a drink is hard to find, more people are drawn to its intrigue. That sort of format and technology already exists and could be a future competitor if dirty soda goes mainstream enough – a Coca-Cola style freestyle machine that the company introduced in 2009 could easily start adding in half and half or syrups. And social media users who live far from soda shop locations are already creating “dupes” at Wawas and 7-Elevens, but using gas station creamer instead of paying a soda barista.

Still, a Swig-style soda shop, Cool Sips, has even opened in overpriced-latte-loving New York City. But it may take some time to make it a cultural staple in the Northeast.

“It’s what you grow up with, and it could be an alternative, but it’s not just comparable if you’re already a coffee drinker,” New York City resident Klea Mulla said. “It’s tough here because the vibe of the soda shops is a drive-through.”