More fast-food chains adopt fun, flavored drinks

Fast-food chains are going all in on fun beverages to attract younger consumers.

Chick-fil-A, known for its straightforward menu of fried chicken and waffle fries, is selling seasonal Pineapple Dragonfruit drinks. Yum Brands’ Taco Bell installed a beverage concept called Live Mas Café inside one of its California locations. McDonald’s is in its second year of testing its drinks-focused spinoff, CosMc’s.

Restaurant operators are betting that drinks with exotic flavors, bright colors and high caffeine and sugar counts will mean higher sales — and better margins.

Fast-food chains are increasingly adding beverage options and widening the number of items within that segment. Refreshers and agua frescas are increasingly showing up on menus, while fast-food chains expand their specialty iced coffee, hot chocolate and energy drink options, according to market research firm Datassential.

Fast-food chains’ recent focus on drinks mirrors the broader restaurant industry as the number of beverage-focused concepts climbs. More regional coffee shops are coming for Starbucks’ crown. Plus, consumers have embraced buying drinks beyond coffee, such as bubble tea and “dirty soda,” the Utah trend of adding syrups, creamers and juice to soda that has spread nationwide.

More and more full-scale establishments are basing their entire businesses on the growing segment. Beverage chains Swig, 7 Brew Drive Thru Coffee and Gong Cha are among the 10 fastest-growing quick-service restaurant chains by sales, according to restaurant market research firm Technomic.

The trend also follows the decadeslong decline in soda consumption since its peak in 2000.

“As the consumer moves away from the traditional soda, there’s an opportunity for operators and different brands to bring something signature to the table that is more in line with their brand in certain instances, but also an opportunity to potentially charge a little more,” said Michael Parlapiano, managing director of the Culinary Edge, a consulting firm that has helped Noodles & Company, McDonald’s and First Watch on menu offerings.

Restaurants are hoping hot chocolate and flavored lemonades can help build loyalty with Gen Z consumers.

Compared to previous generations, Gen Z is the most open to new flavors and comes from the most diverse backgrounds. Gen Z’s openness gives fast-food chains more latitude to explore more unusual offerings, such as butterfly pea or ube, according to Parlapiano. Monin, a French company best known for its flavored syrups, tapped yuzu, an East Asian citrus fruit, as its flavor of the year for 2025.

Traditionally, large fast-food chains are less likely to experiment with such audacious flavors, but even they have stepped outside of their comfort zones. For example, Wendy’s current lemonade lineup includes blueberry pomegranate and pineapple mango — two choices that have paid off for the burger giant.

“Our premium craft lemonades are also incredibly loved by our customers, and this product over-indexes with Hispanic consumers and Gen Z,” Wendy’s U.S. Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Radkoski said at a recent investor event.

Restaurants have also been inspired to mix different drink trends favored by Gen Z, hoping that the unique mashups will attract adventurous consumers.

For example, the soaring popularity of bubble tea, with its chewy tapioca balls, has inspired restaurant chains to add their own boba-inspired touches to drinks beyond tea. CosMc’s, the McDonald’s spinoff, offers dried blueberries and fruity popping boba as customizations for some of its drinks. Shake Shack’s tropical kiwi lemonade includes tiny pieces of kiwi inside the drink, adding a new texture and evoking the chewiness of boba pearls, Parlapiano said.

While different than a traditional soda, restaurants’ foray into drink innovation often means just as much sugar, if not more, depending on the syrups and add-ons. But that doesn’t change Gen Z’s appetite for them.

“We think of it as ‘little treat’ culture. What I can spend is in the grand scheme of things, not a huge sum of money, and yes, I can splurge on this big sugary drink,” said Claire Conaghan, trendologist and associate director for Datassential. “I think the younger consumer is pretty aware that they’re full of sugar, but they’re OK with that as their preference for where they get their sweet treat.”

For some chains, beverages have taken center stage as an area for improvement — and future sales growth.

“We recognize that it’s not just about carbonated sodas anymore,” El Pollo Loco CEO Liz Williams told CNBC. “So we did a deep dive in beverage innovation this year.”

El Pollo Loco’s expanded drink offerings now include more flavors of its Aguas Frescas, which are fruit-infused waters. Future drink innovation could mean following the mashup trend, such as selling horchata coffee, Williams said.

Wendy’s also wants more of its customers to order drinks. Roughly 30% of Wendy’s customers do not add a beverage to their order, according to a recent investor presentation.

“This is an opportunity for growth when these are highly profitable,” Wendy’s U.S. President Abigail Pringle told analysts.

In many cases, beverages generate higher profits and are easier to add to menus than a new food item. While a customer sees a new flavor, for the workers making the drinks, it’s just swapping out a syrup flavor or adding a new drizzle on top. With just a little more labor, restaurants can charge a lot more. Plus, syrups also usually have longer expiration dates than food items and are easier to store, according to Datassential’s Conaghan.

Wendy’s new focus on beverages dovetails with its strategy to keep growing its breakfast sales. When the chain launched its breakfast menu nationwide for the first time in early 2020, the early morning menu featured only a few coffee options, such as its Frosty-ccino, which has since been replaced by the Frosty Cream Cold Brew.   

“Our next horizon of growth at breakfast is in beverages,” Radkoski said.

Likewise, Taco Bell focused on the future opportunity presented by beverages during its investor presentation earlier this month.

“We believe that beverages can be a new core craving for Taco Bell, and we see a line of sight to building a $5 billion beverage business by 2030,” Taylor Montgomery, Taco Bell’s North American chief marketing officer, said in an investor presentation earlier this month ahead of the brand’s Live Mas Live event.

Taco Bell is looking to its new Live Mas Café concept to inform future drink innovation. In December, the chain opened the first location inside an existing store in Chula Vista, California. So far, it has helped the restaurant achieve double-digit transaction and sales growth, according to Taco Bell executives.

The Live Mas menu features more than 30 drinks, spanning different day parts. Highlights include refrescas that are caffeinated with green tea or Rockstar energy drinks; Churro Chillers; and a “Dirty Baja,” made by adding cream to its signature Baja Blast Mountain Dew.

“Things that we’re learning within the Live Mas Café concept, we’re pulling out and trying to scale across all of our units in the U.S.,” Montgomery said, adding that the company wants to aggressively expand the Live Mas Café this year.

Later this year, Taco Bell plans to bring its Dragonfruit Refresca to all U.S. restaurants.