Care for a dirty soda? How this drink trend became a US obsession
People also no longer needed to visit soda fountains to get a glass of ice-cold Coke. After Coca-Cola was first served at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in
People also no longer needed to visit soda fountains to get a glass of ice-cold Coke. After Coca-Cola was first served at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta in 1886, it remained a soda fountain drink until bottling rights were sold in 1899. By 1909, nearly 400 bottling plants had opened across the US. “Bottled Coke didn’t replace the soda fountain’s product,” Tannenbaum said. “It replaced the soda fountain’s reason to exist.” But culture, by its nature, is dynamic, and what Nicole Tanner recognised in the 2010s when she founded Swig was that a soda shop could once again be a destination, as much about the trip as it was about the product sold. “I knew Swig would be much more than just a drink,” Tanner wrote in 2022. “It would be a destination and the best part of people’s day.” Tanner was right. Soda shops have become a hub of social life for young people. Gabriella Ludwig, an 18-year-old from Fairfax County, Virginia, outside Washington, DC, loves going to her local soda shop, Coco’s Sodas + Sweets, with friends. “It’s just something different than the norm. A lot of times it just feels like there’s nothing to do or it’s just the same thing over and over again - restaurants, shopping and movies or whatever,” she said.
“But this offers something new where we don’t have to spend much but can sit down, chat and enjoy a fun drink. It’s also fun because we can’t drink alcohol yet, so it gives us more options than just the regular sodas and whatnot.” For decades, classic teenage hangouts like shopping malls, arcades and skating rinks have been in decline, leaving few places where teenagers could meet with friends without having to spend a lot of money or be ushered away for loitering. According to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), compiled by the US government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans aged 15 and older in 2005 were spending 273.75 hours socialising and 51.1 hours on computer use for leisure annually. In 2010 when the first Swig opened, that same age group reported 255.5 hours socialising and 73 hours on the computer weekly. By 2022, when soda shop expansion accelerated, the ATUS showed more significant social decline: 204.4 hours socialising to 73 hours on the computer. Today, this trend shows no signs of reversing. Given that computer use remained the same from 2010 to 2022, perhaps teens aren’t spending less time together because they're online.
Perhaps they simply have nowhere to go. A 2025 study in the Health & Place journal found the availability of “third places”, social environments separate from the home and workplace, fell across all US census tracts from 2010 to 2021. “The teenagers I work with seldom say to me they would prefer to be on their phones,” registered psychologist Rod Mitchell said. “What they say is that there are no places to go and that asking anyone to hang out seems like a lot these days. That’s what a third place solves: It removes the ask.” The boom in standalone soda shops suggests that if you build it, they will come (and document it for social media). Some of the larger chains now operate well beyond Utah. With more than 160 locations, Swig has expanded into 16 states, but its footprint is concentrated in Utah, Texas and Arizona. FiiZ Drinks now has more than 70 locations nationwide although it is also most concentrated in the US mountain states. Meanwhile, independent soda concepts have opened in states including Arizona, the Carolinas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia, showing that the trend has spread well beyond Utah.
The BriefWire