Pizza & a Pop: A Field Guide to Pairing Litzas With Utah's Soda Shops
Most of the country pairs pizza night with a six-pack or a warm two-liter of cola. Utah does something better. Somewhere along the way the Beehive State turned the customized soft drink into a genuine culinary category — the "dirty soda" — and once you've had a hand-tossed Litzas pie next to a tall cup of swirling cream, fruit, and pebble ice, there's really no going back. So skip the wine list. Here's how we'd pair a Litzas pie with the best soda counters in the valley.
First, a quick primer for the newcomers. A dirty soda starts with a regular soda base — Dr Pepper, Coke, Mountain Dew, Sprite — and gets "dirtied up" with flavored syrups, a splash of fruit purée, and a finish of cream (heavy cream, half-and-half, or coconut cream for the dairy-free crowd), all poured over crunchy nugget ice. The style was born right here in Utah back in 2010, when Nicole Tanner opened the very first Swig in St. George after a trip to a Sonic drive-in sparked the idea. With coffee and alcohol off the table for a big share of the state, soda shops became Utah's answer to the corner café — the place you actually meet up with friends. A pop star posted one in 2021, a streaming show name-dropped them a hundred times, and the rest of the country finally caught up to what Utahns had known for a decade.
Now, to the pairings.
The classic: pepperoni, meet the Dirty Dr Pepper
If you only order one thing, order this. The Dirty Dr Pepper — Dr Pepper, coconut, fresh lime, and a touch of cream — is the drink that launched the entire movement, and it's the gold-standard match for a classic pepperoni or our Red & Black. The peppery, slightly smoky pie and that bright lime-and-coconut soda set each other off perfectly. Grab one from Swig, the St. George original that started it all in 2010 and now has locations across the valley — and do not leave without one of their chilled sugar cookies with pink frosting. It's not optional.
Hawaiian or Canadian: go tropical
A salty-sweet pie — our Hawaiian or the ham-loaded Canadian — wants something bright and tropical to match the pineapple. This is where Sodalicious shines. Open since 2013 and famous for its playful, tongue-in-cheek drink names (the "Holy Water," the "Rocky Mountain High," the Dr Pepper-and-horchata "El Doctoro"), they build coconut-and-fruit combinations that play beautifully against salty ham. Prefer the original? Swig's Waikiki — Coke, pineapple, and coconut cream — is basically a tiki drink in a cup, minus the bar.
A white pizza: cut the richness with citrus
Our white pies — think the garlic-cheese, the five-cheese, the spinach-and-artichoke — are creamy and rich, so the move is a crisp, citrus-forward soda to keep your palate awake. FiiZ (say it "fizz") is built for exactly this: with a wall of fresh purées and something like 10,000 possible combinations, you can dial in a light lime-and-peach soda made to order. Their whole motto is "Your Drink. Your Way," and they mean it. If you're downtown, Thirst is the hometown pick — it started in 2016 in a converted drive-through right here in Salt Lake City, and the made-from-scratch beignets and soft pretzel bites are worth the stop on their own. Every order even comes with free popcorn.
Going meaty? Lean into root beer
Here's a pairing the rest of the country sleeps on. A loaded sausage, a Meatza, or a Western BBQ pie loves a creamy root beer soda. FiiZ does a "Captain Jack" (root beer, spiced chai, and cream) and a "Fireplace" (root beer, cinnamon, cherry, and cream) that drink like dessert and stand right up to a heavy slice. It's also a nice nod to what's already on the Litzas menu — more on that in a second.
A couple more worth the detour
- Quench It! — Out of Heber City since 2014, with some of the best pebble ice in the business and specialty cookies from local Utah brand Süss instead of the usual pink sugar cookie. The "Twisted Sister" (Dr Pepper, cherry, cheesecake syrup, and cream) tastes exactly like cherry cheesecake, and somehow it works.
- Twisted Sugar — A little less buzzy than the big chains, big on fresh-baked cookies, and stocked with bases you won't find elsewhere (red cream soda, orange Fanta, light lemonade). A great call when the drive-through line down the street is wrapped around the building.
One local's pro tip: plenty of Swig and Sodalicious locations close on Sundays, so if pizza-and-a-pop is a Sunday-night plan, FiiZ and many gas-station soda counters tend to run seven days a week. And if you're watching the sugar, nearly every shop will make any drink "skinny" with diet soda and sugar-free syrups, or swap in coconut cream to keep it dairy-free.
Or just keep it simple at our table
You don't actually have to leave to get the pairing right. Litzas pours the nostalgic stuff in-house — root beer, apple beer, lemonade, and fruit punch — family-friendly, and already cold when your pie slides out of the oven. Some nights the best dinner is the one where everything lands on the table at the same time.
The move, then: pick up a pie from Litzas, swing through your favorite soda window on the way home, and you've built the most Utah dinner imaginable.
