Utah's Soda Wars

Drive-thru soda shops selling flavored Dr Pepper and Coke with coconut cream and fruit purée have become one of Utah's most recognizable retail exports. What started as a handful of Utah County stands has turned into a genuine competitive field, with new chains chasing the same strip-mall corners as the incumbents.

Using storefront location data compiled from each chain's own store locator, we counted every dirty soda shop currently operating in Utah to see who actually leads the market — and how far ahead of the pack they really are.

The top of the market is closer than the old story about Swig running away with it. FiiZ has quietly built the largest storefront count in the state, edging past Swig by five locations — a genuine two-chain race, not a runaway. Twisted Sugar holds a clear third place, while Thirst and Sodalicious are running neck-and-neck for the next tier, and Quench It! rounds out the chains with a real multi-county footprint.

The lead has actually changed hands more than once. Swig briefly pulled back ahead in early 2026, but FiiZ has been opening Utah locations faster than Swig ever since — 14 new FiiZ stores in the last two years against 8 for Swig — and that pace is what put FiiZ on top this summer.

Counting Utah storefronts alone also hides how differently these chains are actually built. FiiZ, Swig, and Twisted Sugar have all expanded into more than a dozen states apiece — Utah is now just one market among many for them. Thirst, Quench It!, and Sip-N haven't left the state at all, and Sodalicious has only just started.

Counting chains hides a different story: some cities are far more saturated with soda shops than others, relative to how many people actually live there. Santa Clara has one shop for roughly every 4,100 residents — the most saturated city we track. Sandy, more than ten times Santa Clara's population, has one for roughly every 47,500. Across all 43 cities with at least two tracked shops, it works out to about one shop per 16,500 people.

Saturation isn't the same as competition. Some of the cities above have a lot of shops simply because one chain blanketed them — the real fights are happening where three or more brands have planted stores within reach of the same customers.