More fast food chains adopt fun, flavorful drinks

Fast food chains are all incorporated into fun drinks to attract young consumers.

Known for its easy menu of fried chicken and waffle fries, Chickfill A sells seasonal pineapple dragon fruit drinks. Yum Brands ‘ Taco Bell installed a drink concept called Live Mas Café in one of its California locations. McDonald’s It’s been two years since I’ve tested COSMC, a drink-centric spinoff.

Restaurant operators are betting that exotic flavors, bright colors, drinks with a high number of caffeine and sugar mean higher sales and better margins.

Fast food chains are increasingly adding beverage options and increasing the number of items within their segment. Refresh and Agua Fresca are increasingly appearing on the menu, but fast food chains are expanding their options for special iced coffee, hot chocolate and energy drinks, according to market research firm Datasential.

FastFood Chains’ recent focus on drinks reflects the wider restaurant industry as the number of drink-focused concepts climbs. More local coffee shops are coming Starbucks Crown. Furthermore, consumers are open to buying drinks beyond coffee, such as bubble tea and “dirty soda.”

More and more full-scale facilities are based on the entire business based on growing segments. Beverage chains Swig, 7 Brew Drive Through Coffee and Gong Cha are one of the 10 fastest growing quick service restaurant chains per sale, according to restaurant market research firm Technomic.

This trend continues with decades of decline in soda consumption since its peak in 2000.

“As consumers move away from traditional soda, operators and various brands have the opportunity to sign tables that, in certain instances, are brand-based, but there are also opportunities to charge a little more.” Noodles and companyWith McDonald’s First clock Menu offering.

The restaurant hopes that hot chocolate and flavoured lemonade will help build loyalty with Gen Z Consumers.

Compared to the previous generation, Gen Z is the most open to new flavors and comes from the most diverse backgrounds. According to Parlapiano, Gen Z’s openness gives the fast food chain latitude and offers more latitude to explore more unusual products such as butterfly peas and umbes. Monin, the French company best known for its flavoured syrup, tapped the East Asian citrus fruit Yu as its taste of the year in 2025.

Traditionally, large fast food chains are less likely to experiment with such bold flavours, but have come out of their comfort zone. for example, Wendy’s The current lemonade lineup includes blueberry pomegranates and pineapple mangoes. These are two options that have paid off by the Burger Giant.

“Our premium craft lemonade is loved by our customers too, and this product is over-indexed with Hispanic consumers and Gen Z,” Lindsay Radkoski, U.S. Chief Marketing Officer at Wendy, said at a recent investor event.

The restaurant is also inspired by mixing the various drink trends preferred by Gen Z, hoping that the unique mashup will attract adventurous consumers.

For example, the rising popularity of bubble tea with chewy tapioca balls has encouraged restaurant chains to add their own boba-esque touch to drinks beyond tea. McDonald’s spinoff, COSMC, offers dried blueberries and fruity popping boba for some customizations of the drink. Shake Shack’s tropical kiwi lemonade contains small pieces of kiwi in the drink, adding new textures and evoking the chunks of Boba Pearls, said Parlapiano.

Unlike traditional sodas, restaurants’ forays into drink innovation means as much sugar as more sugar, depending on the syrup and add-on. But that doesn’t change Z’s appetite for them.

“We see it as a culture of ‘small treatment’. What I can spend is not a huge amount, it’s a grand plan of things, and yes, I can scatter this big sugar drink,” said Claire Connagan, trendist and associate director at Datassential. “I think young consumers are pretty aware that they’re full of sugar, but they like to get sweet treats, so they’re fine with that.”

In some chains, beverages are centrally on the ground as an area of ​​improvement and as a area of ​​future sales growth.

“We realize that it’s not just sodium carbonate anymore.” El Polo Roco CEO Liz Williams told CNBC. “So we’ve delved deeper into beverage innovation this year.”

El Pollo Loco’s expanded drink offering includes more flavors of Aguas Frescas, fruit-infused water. Future drink innovations could mean following mashup trends, such as selling Horchata Coffee.

Wendy also hopes to order drinks from more customers. According to a recent investor presentation, about 30% of Wendy’s customers have not added drinks to their orders.

“This is an opportunity for highly profitable growth that these are very profitable,” Wendy’s US President Abigail Pringle told analysts.

Beverages often generate higher profits and are easier to add to your menu than new foods. Customers are looking at new flavors, but as workers are making drinks, they are swapping the syrup flavor and adding new drizzle on top. With just a little effort, the restaurant can charge more. Additionally, Sylups usually have a longer shelf life than food and are easier to store.

Wendy’s new focus on Beverages features a strategy to continue selling breakfasts. When the chain first launched its breakfast menu nationwide in early 2020, the early morning menu only featured several coffee options, including Frosty-Syno, which was replaced by Frosty Cream cold brew.

“The next horizon for growth at breakfast is drinks,” Radkoski said.

Similarly, Taco Bell focused on future opportunities Beverages presents during an investor presentation earlier this month.

“We believe drinks can be a new core for Taco Bell, and we have a view to build a $5 billion beverage business by 2030,” Taylor Montgomery, North America’s Chief Marketing Officer at Taco Bell, said in an investor presentation earlier this month ahead of the brand’s live MAS live event.

Taco Bell is looking for a new Live Mas Café Concept to inform future drink innovations. In December, the chain opened its first location in an existing store in Chula Vista, California. So far, it has helped restaurants achieve double-digit trading and sales growth, according to an executive at Taco Bell.

The Live MAS menu features over 30 drinks, spanning parts for different days. Highlights include Refrecca, which is caffeine in green tea or rock star energy drinks. Churro Chiller; and “Dirty Baja” is made by adding cream to its representative Baja Blast Mountain Dew.

“What we’re learning within the concept of Live Mass Cafe is trying to bring out and expand all the units in the US,” said Montgomery, who hopes to actively expand Live Mass Cafe this year.

Later this year, Taco Bell plans to bring Dragon Fruit Refresa to all US restaurants.