Care for a dirty soda? How this drink trend became a US obsession

A traditional retail lease is not a barrier to entry for dirty soda entrepreneurs. dirty soda trucks are gaining momentum, allowing operators to launch their businesses with less upfront investment and, as an added benefit, to meet their customers where they are.Because soda shops sell inexpensive, customisable drinks, they can encourage frequent visits and function more like beverage destinations than traditional fast-food restaurants while benefitting from the higher margins typical of fountain beverages.However, major brands are also trying to capitalise on the trend, encroaching on standalone soda shops’ consumer base. Beverage companies, including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Keurig Dr Pepper and Nestle, have introduced ready-to-drink items, such as cream-flavoured colas and mixers like creamers and flavoured syrups.The soda shop’s biggest competitors, namely fast-food joints or quick-service restaurants (QSRs), have also entered the space, offering flavoured cream add-ins, build-your-own beverages and dirty versions of flagship sodas. For decades, US foodservice brands sold beverages as attachments to food, explained Eric Lam, CEO of Berry AI, which provides AI-powered service insights to brands such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King. Increasingly, that relationship has reversed. Will the one-stop-shop nature of QSRs squeeze soda shops out entirely?Not so fast. The high-customisation nature of dirty soda puts real pressure on QSRs, Lam said. “If dirty soda adds 30 seconds to every ticket, you’ve just made your busiest part of the day slower without knowing why,” Lam said.Meanwhile, that customisability is exactly what gives standalone soda shops a foothold in the market that ready-to-drink (RTD) sales can’t compete with, Tannenbaum said.Soda shops may not be doomed to suffer the same fate as the once-ubiquitous US soda fountains. This time, it’s not about simply being able to bypass the soda fountain by purchasing bottled Coke to stock the fridge at home. It’s about the experience of choosing toppings and add-ins to “dirty up” Cokes.“Customisation creates ownership, and ownership creates habit,” Tannenbaum said. “People value the drink more because they built it. This makes the category sticky, and it’s the one thing a prepackaged RTD almost certainly can’t replicate.”With hundreds of possible combinations, dirty soda encourages experimentation (and thus repeat sales) until consumers find their perfect drinks. As of 2025, the market had grown to an estimated $1.1bn industry and is expected to swell to $2.6bn by 2033, according to an HTF Market Intelligence report.At its core, “dirty soda isn’t really about soda,” said Graham Humphreys, president of The Culinary Edge, a food and beverage consulting company. “It’s about personalisation, indulgence and identity. Consumers are purchasing a beverage, and more than that, they’re buying a small moment of reward.”To be sure, soda shops have some limitations that may confine them to a niche category rather than a staple that exists on every corner alongside Starbucks. First, there are health concerns over calories and sugar. The average dirty soda has 250 to 400 calories, and a fully loaded large one can pack 500 calories or more. Also, many of the shops don’t serve food, so there is less appeal for consumers who want a meal and a beverage. Some shops have hedged their bets by branding themselves as soda shops that also carry sweets and snacks, such as cookies, cakes and pretzels.But even with the challenges, Lam said he thinks everyone can capture a piece of the dirty soda pie. He said soda shops and QSRs can coexist so long as the latter carefully plan for the kind of demand and limited customisation their format can handle.“If you can see the additional pressure, you can adjust for it, and then it’s a revenue opportunity instead of a bottleneck,” Lam said.dirty soda has evolved from a regional curiosity into a new beverage category. Whether standalone soda shops become as ubiquitous as coffee shops remains uncertain, but they have already influenced the broader restaurant industry, and they are expanding across the US.“Ultimately, dirty soda’s future will be determined by whether specialist brands can continue owning occasions that consumers value enough to justify a dedicated trip,” Humphreys said.“That's a much higher bar than creating an Instagram-worthy drink.”