4 Unwritten Rules of a Utah Soda Shop Drive-Thru
Sit in a Salt Lake City soda shop drive-thru line with your engine running for more than two minutes, and you’re breaking a city rule.
The rest of the drive-thru rules aren’t written down, but Utahns follow them anyway.
Here are the unwritten rules of a Utah soda shop drive-thru, so you’re ready when you pull up.
1. Base Soda First
A soda shop drive-thru order starts with the base soda, according to a Deseret News guide to ordering.
Examples are Diet Coke, seltzer and Sprite.
Flavors come next, and shops often have coconut, peach, vanilla and blue raspberry.
If you want cream, you ask for half-and-half or whatever cream the shop has on hand.
A sample order is a Diet Coke with peach syrup and vanilla cream.
Add-ons are the norm at Swig, whose founder said in 2024 that 95% to 97% of orders have something added to the soda.
What Dirty Means on a Soda Order
A dirty soda at a soda shop drive-thru traditionally means a soda with coconut syrup, fresh lime and a splash of half-and-half.
For the classic, you can usually just ask for a dirty Diet Coke.
The word also stretches to any soda with Italian syrups.
2. Bikes and Walk-Ups
A 2015 state law keeps Utah cities and counties from requiring a soda shop drive-thru to serve you on a bike or on foot.
The law overrode a Salt Lake City rule that had required a restaurant to keep serving people on bikes at the drive-through when it closed its lobby.
So if you roll up on a bike, the shop decides whether to serve you at the window, since the city can’t require it.
3. App Lanes
Soda Time’s Pleasant Grove drive-thru has a second lane for app orders only, and the shop calls it the Fly-Thru lane.
You can pick up an app order there without waiting in line.
If you’re ordering in person, you use the other lane.
4. Salt Lake City’s Idling Limit
Idling for more than two minutes isn’t allowed in a Salt Lake City soda shop drive-thru line, under the city’s idle-free ordinance.
Two minutes is more than enough time for you to move through a drive-through line.
Drive-through businesses can qualify for an exemption from enforcement on their property by posting idle-free signs approved by the city.
Where Swig Started
The craze for dirty soda shops kicked off in Utah around 2010.
Founder Nicole Tanner opened the first Swig in St. George that year, according to QSR.
The original store was 600 square feet.
Swig opened a second shop about a mile away to ease the long lines.
In 2013, after a local news station featured Swig as a must-visit destination, lines at both stores stretched out to the street.
By 2020, each Swig store had around 20 base drinks and 30-plus flavored syrups, creams and fresh-fruit purées.
The 550-square-foot shipping-container shops Swig was building by then, complete with drive-thrus, helped the brand during the coronavirus pandemic.
If you pull up to a Swig today, you’re joining a chain of 160 locations in 16 states, according to Utah Business in June 2026.
Dr Pepper by Another Name
Swig’s drive-thru menu includes the Texas Tab, a Dr Pepper with vanilla and coconut cream.
If you want raspberry, Bevvy’s Soda Shop sells The Girlfriend, a Dr Pepper with raspberry purée and coconut cream, and Thirst sells the same build as Dr. McCreamy.
At Soda Retreat, the Fastlane is Dr Pepper with raspberry purée and coconut creamer.
If you’d rather skip Dr Pepper, FiiZ’s Fireplace is made with root beer, cinnamon, maraschino cherry and cream.
Sodalicious’s Ging and Juice is ginger ale with coconut and pineapple.
Pink Sugar Cookies
Almost every dirty soda shop has the standard pink sugar cookie to go with your drink.
Swig’s version is a pink frosted sugar cookie, and a popular Swig order pairs it with the Texas Tab.
Swig added cookies to its menu through a partnership with a local bakery.
If you’d rather skip the pink one, Soda Retreat sells a milk chocolate chip cookie, and Quench It! partners with Süss Cookie Co. in Midway.
Thirst sells popcorn, beignets and fresh-baked pretzel items.
FiiZ offers a variety of sweet and savory snacks, including nachos, pretzels, churro bites and cookie dough bites.
Shops With Seats
Not every soda shop relies on the drive-thru alone.
Bevvy’s Soda Shop is independent, female-owned and family-run, with a drive-thru and a large dine-in area where you can stay a while.
At Soda Retreat in Salem, a family-owned shop, you can sit indoors or outdoors.
Psst! How much do you know about Utah’s food and drinks? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Utah Food and Drink Trivia
Answer these questions on Utah food and drink, plus a few classic sodas from other states. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Don Carlos Edwards, the Salt Lake City restaurateur behind fry sauce, first made the sauce for which food?
Swig Drive-Thru Lines
A 2022 Salt Lake Tribune list of the worst drive-thrus in Utah, based on readers' input, named Swig among the top offenders, along with Chick-fil-A and Iceberg.
Swig's Lil' Squish toy giveaway in late August 2026 brought cars to a St. George store hours before the Thursday noon drop.
The toys came free with a 32- or 44-ounce drink, so you had to buy big to get one.
Each drop had 84 toys, and the Thursday supply sold out in 15 minutes.
By 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, the line already wrapped around the building and out to the road.
That store closed its lobby and kept only the drive-through open, so you had to go through the line for a drink.
It added employees to direct traffic and set out cones so cars wouldn't block the entrances.
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