Soft drinks with a twist at Saskatoon's Soda Stop
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today, the StarPhoenix talks to Kentucky Davidson, who together with his wife Krista, opened Soda Stop in Saskatoon out of a pink trailer last July.
They’ve since moved into a storefront at Gather Local Market in November, serving “dirty soda,” which is soda mixed with syrup flavors and creamers.
It’s a trend that has caught on throughout Canada and the US. When they first opened last year, the Davidsons experienced lineups across the parking lot. They’ve continued to see strong sales since moving downtown.
Q: What is dirty soda?
A: A dirty soda is a base of pop such as Coke or Pepsi, and we add different flavours of syrup into it such as cherry, vanilla, coconut or stuff like that. And then what actually makes it a dirty soda is when we add creamer to it. We add a coconut creamer or a vanilla creamer to it and that’s where you got the term dirty from. If you were just to put syrups into a pop it’s not dirty soda, it’s just flavored pop.
From my understanding, it kind of originated in Utah. My wife and I have known about dirty sodas for a long time. But the concept of doing it is actually fairly new to a lot of people. There are dirty soda shops popping up all across Canada now.
Q: Why did you open Soda Stop in Saskatoon?
A: We were born and raised in Alberta, but we moved here last year to do this. There are multiple pop shops in Alberta. All the small towns have them. We’ve been to Saskatoon before. We have some family that lives here and we just knew that there wasn’t anything like that here. So we kind of took a chance and moved out here and built this business and people have loved it so far.
I have been in construction and sales most of my life. And Krista used to do lashes. She’s also worked in retail and worked as a dental assistant. It was definitely a big risk moving away from our home and starting something that we didn’t know would do this well.
The confidence in opening came from knowing how busy the pop shops are in Alberta where we are from. They are super busy. People even come there a lot during the winter.
Q: What is your best seller?
A: Our No. 1 seller is a Dr Pepper base. It’s called Sipping on Fire. It’s got raspberry syrup, coconut syrup, fresh lime and then coconut creamer with Dr Pepper. And we came up with a fall menu that was pretty popular. And then during the winter and Christmas time we came up with a new menu as well just for seasonal drinks. And they were very popular, but still the Sipping on Fire trumped all the drinks. I think the combination of raspberry, coconut and coconut cream is just super, super popular.
We’ve got Cowgirl Soda. It’s got Coke as the base and then that one is raspberry vanilla with fresh lime and vanilla creamer. There are honestly a lot of popular drinks. We do orange creamsicle. It is Sprite with orange syrup and vanilla creamer.
Q: You serve both Coke and Pepsi?
A: We originally just had our Coke machine in our trailer. But we sold Pepsi products as well. Close to the end of the summer I reached out to Pepsi and got in contact with a Pepsi rep and had him come to the trailer. He saw that we had Coca-Cola in there but was shocked at the amount of Pepsi product we went through. He wanted to partner with us as well. So in the local Gather Market we have a Coke machine and a Pepsi machine.
Q: Where do you get the names for your drinks from?
Just a lot of brainstorming. We have a lot of drinks named after country songs that we like and movies and sayings and TV shows. My name is Kentucky and my favorite name on the menu, and kind of named after me, is the Kentucky Derby. It’s Root Beer with butterscotch, vanilla and vanilla creamer. That was very popular as well.
Q: What syrups do you offer?
A: Any flavour that you can think of, we’ve got it. Raspberry, coconut, peach, lime, cherry, vanilla, butterscotch, strawberry, gingerbread and green apple. There are so many. That allows us to be able to make a lot of different concoctions and kind of appeal to all different types of pallets.
Q: Do you have zero-sugar syrups as well?
A: We have about six. We definitely try to have all these sugar-free options so that people that are diabetic or are looking to reduce their sugar intake, it allows them to come get a little treat.
Q: Do you still have your pink trailer?
A: The last day of our trailer before winter was October 31. We’ll bring it back out in the springtime and we’ll probably just use it to do events if we can to get into events like food truck wars and the Ex and things like that.
Q: How were the crowds when you first opened?
A: It was surreal. It was nuts. We were ran off our feet for four or five hours a day for seven days a week to the point where we had to start hiring some employees because we just couldn’t do it all ourselves. We were just in awe. It shocked us how many people came out to support us and loved our product and it just took off. Ironically it was originally in a dental office parking lot.
Q: What sets Soda Stop apart?
A: What sets us apart is that the ingredients that we use really attract people. And the combinations of the drinks is strong. It’s not just a normal Coke or a normal Sprite or Pepsi. It’s a soda mixed with things that is such a different taste from what people are used to that it really attracts them.
We only really do drinks. We don’t sell food. I think at the least we compliment food places. Where we are at right now there are definitely food places – there’s Deadly Dans, Pops Shawarma, and other restaurants. They have amazing food. Lots of people just come get the food and come get a drink from us. So we kind of compliment them.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Soda Stop
Owners:
Kentucky & Krista Davidson
Address:
414 Avenue B South (Gather Local Market)
Hours:
Tuesday & Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Thursday & Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Closed Mondays.
Phone:
587-220-8479
Email:
Sodastopsask@gmail.com
Website:
Check:
Instagram
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