Before craft beer bars and artisanal coffee shops became our go-to gathering places, America had the soda fountain. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, soda jerks stood behind marble counters mixing flavored syrups, creams and carbonated water into custom concoctions for sweet-toothed customers. The trend largely disappeared with the rise of bottled soft drinks—that is, until it resurfaced in the early 2010s in Mormon communities across the American West, where those skipping cocktails and cappuccinos found another way to indulge.
Thanks to Utah-based retail chains, TikTok, and the reality TV phenomenon The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives—whose cast members have compared the popularity of dirty soda shops in Utah to Starbucks in other cities—the trend has exploded into the mainstream. The drinks, which combine soda with flavored syrups, fruit purees, creamers and candies, are a modern reinvention of the classic soda fountain. And now, to the delight of TikTok devotees, mocktail enthusiasts and plain-old sweet-treat lovers, they’ve arrived in our neck of the woods.
Dirty Sara-Soda is the vision of Amber Hanratty, a longtime Sarasota resident originally from Chicago. After more than 20 years in the construction industry—where she coordinated operations and managed customer service teams and subcontractors—Hanratty found herself ready for something entirely different. For the first time in her adult life, she stepped away from work entirely, taking time to decompress and figure out what came next…