If you’ve ever arrived a restaurant, ordered a soda, and heard the dreaded reply, “Is [name of competing soda brand you don’t like] okay?” — this site is for you. In fact, that’s exactly why we created it in the first place.
Pepsi, Coca-Cola and beyond
When it comes to the restaurant-soda connection, the #1 piece of information that most people want to know is if a place serves Coke or Pepsi products.
We figured that part out pretty well, and those details will appear toward to top of every restaurant page.
But then we thought, why not provide more information, such as specific brands and soda names? How hard could that be, right?
Turns out it was pretty complicated.
Finding soda & restaurant information
For one thing, we quickly discovered that there’s not always a straightforward way to find those details — especially if you’re not up for creating an account and setting up an online order to just access the drink menu.
Sometimes, that’s because the restaurants or delivery services really want to get your contact info… but it’s also due to the fact that at many places, the menu may vary by region and specific location, or even by season. This is especially true of franchised locations, where decisions about what exact food and drink to stock may vary.
We realized there is no way we can perfectly cover every soda and soft drink option, for every location, every day — but we did the best we can.
In a few cases, we had to enter a city and state to access the beverage menu, so we either used the Phoenix, Arizona area (where we’re based), or, for the many restaurants that aren’t in the state, chose a major metro market in that particular region.
To help fill any gaps in our information, every restaurant post includes a link to that company’s website, so you can take a look at your local menus, or contact them to get any details you need.
Organizing the soda pop picture
Once we got some of the data into our system, there was the question of how to organize the web of soft drink brands.
What was the best way to distinguish between brand names of products? There were those that came from huge parent companies like Coke and Pepsi, to the various smaller drink brands owned (in part or wholly) by these corporations, to some independent companies.
We also discovered that there are many region-specific quirks. For example, Schweppes is owned by Coca-Cola in certain countries other than the US. Similarly, Pepsi owns the international rights to the 7-Up brand, but not in the good ol’ US of A. (In the states, both Schweppes and 7-Up are part of the Dr Pepper company portfolio.)
We decided to go with a simple soda hierarchy, which you can see here, and limited it to drinks are served at restaurants in the United States.
Basically, if the brand has an identity separate enough to have its own website, we usually listed it as a brand — especially if the products have several varieties. Examples: Sunkist, Fanta, Minute Maid, and Mountain Dew.
Something that is a popular flavor of a soft drink brand — like Cherry Coke and Pepsi Wild Cherry — we listed as an individual soda, as you can also see here.
A few more notes: Some products may be available for take-out or delivery only. Also, other than listing some soda jugs, we do not cover catering options.
We use the terms soda and pop interchangeably, and soft drinks can refer to sodas or any number of non-alcoholic beverages. On that note, we don’t have information about boozy beverages served at restaurants (wine, beer, etc).
Ch-ch-changes
Another challenge was that soft drink business portfolios change often — brands and companies being bought, discontinued, sold outright, or even sold with a continuing investment or commercial relationship. We want to make it clear that listing a brand’s parent organization does not necessarily mean exclusive ownership of that brand.
For a look at some of the many soda trademarks owned and/or operated and/or distributed by the big players, check out their individual pages on our site here: Coca Cola, Pepsi, Dr Pepper.
If you are really curious about brand ownership, we suggest you visit the Coca-Cola investor site, Pepsi investor information, and the Keurig Dr Pepper investor center.
This is where we also want to add that we are not associated with any of the restaurants or soda companies mentioned on this site, nor are we investors. All product and company names and logos are registered trademarks of their respective holders, and their use does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
This site is supported by general ad and affiliate revenue, but we have no direct relationships with any advertisers.
Bonus points
We complicated our task a bit more by listing other non-alcoholic drinks on restaurant menus as well, meaning everything from juice boxes to milkshakes to hot coffee. We hope this bonus information will be helpful to you, even if not specifically about soda.
The story continues
If you have an addition, suggestion or correction (be nice — we’re trying hard here!), please let us know through our contact form.
