Viral soft serve margaritas are taking over social media

Social media's latest obsession is sweet, soft, and has people driving hours and across state lines to find it. Soft serve margaritas have captured the attention of people across the United States, who are now searching for restaurants that have them.

The latest soft serve margarita obsession took off after videos of the drinks went viral, including clips showing treats from La Playa Mexican Restaurant & Mariscos in Cleveland, Ohio. People started uploading videos of their treats, showing colorful soft serve twists of an ice cream and alcoholic mixture in a giant margarita glass, and getting hundreds of thousands of likes.

Here's what we know about the viral trend.

Soft serve margaritas are having a moment right now but they're aren't new

But for some restaurants, soft serve margaritas are not a new thing. Nothing’s Left Brewing Co. in Tulsa, Oklahoma has had alcoholic soft serve on its menu for over five years, co-owner Lacy Richards told USA TODAY. Right now, the featured flavor is watermelon coconut margarita soft serve.

"In the past five years...we've done peach cobbler, we've done like espresso martini style, we've done, my gosh, all kinds of things," Richards said. "We've just kind of run the gamut because we, as a brewery, are not allowed to have liquor, so ours are not tequila-based. Ours are actually hard seltzer-based,and that has very little flavor. So, we get to play and do like all kinds of fun stuff."

For the brewery, alternative drinks started with alcoholic slushies before morphing into ice cream, Richards said.

"We've had alcoholic slushies for a long time, and one time we were just like, what if we did the same but with ice cream?" Richards said. "What we offer actually is what we call frozen flight. So that's one alcoholic soft serve, whatever that month is. And then the rest is three alcoholic slushies. It's super fun."

For Richards, the draw of the soft serve margaritas is rooted in people's desire for ice cream and aesthetically pleasing things. The trend has brought people from states away for the soft serve, she added.

"What we say around here is people love the things that they already are used to and is their favorite repackaged in something fun and interesting. And so, incorporating two things we know they love, margaritas and ice cream, and putting them together is spell bounding," Richards said. "...we're getting so many people from Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, really coming in just to try the soft serve margarita. It's been very fun and it's a great time of year to do it because it's getting warm and springlike."

Some restaurants are just joining the soft serve margarita party

That sentiment is shared at Doña Leti‘s Restaurant & Bar in Houston, Texas, which recently added dairy-free mango, strawberry, and a mix of both flavors of soft serve margaritas to its menu after seeing a spike in popularity.

”The customers have loved it…everybody loves margaritas. And I think that anytime that you take something that is well loved by everybody and you just spin it to get some sort of unique concept on it, I think it always lands well,” co-owner Kalli Lozano told USA TODAY. “I think that people are just really excited about having something new and something different to something that's already so loved like a margarita.”

The restaurant bought an ice cream machine and tried out over 20 recipes over the course of five days to find the right consistency and alcohol combination before officially adding it to the menu, Lozano said. Customers can choose to customize the margaritas, including adding chamoy and tajín seasonings along with salt and sugar rims.

Similar to Richards and the brewery, customers have traveled from neighboring states to try the new margaritas, adding traffic to the restaurant’s busy season, Lozano said.

“We actually had somebody the other day who drove from Louisiana because they saw the soft serve margaritas and they wanted to come try it so bad, and so we have had a ton of first time guests come in,” Lozano said. “It's funny because in addition to like first time guests, we have had a ton of people from other restaurants coming and checking them out.”

Social media hunts for soft serve margaritas

Videos of the soft serve margaritas have gained traction on social media, leading people to search for their own local establishment serving the treat and garnering hundreds of thousands of views.

Both Lozano and Richards said they have seen guests recording themselves as they try the treat, something that adds to the fun trend.

Beyond people filming themselves trying the trendy treat, videos asking where to find the soft serve in cities across the United States are also popping up on social media, racking up thousands of views and comments, trying to find the answer. Social media users have put out calls on platforms in cities like Dallas, Atlanta, Boston and more, most lamenting the distance to a soft serve margarita.

How to make a soft serve margarita at home

Some soft serve margarita fans are opting to make the treat themselves at home using ice cream or churning machines that get cold enough to have the same effect on the ingredients.

One soft serve margarita recipe posted by Ninja Kitchen, which also created the Ninja CREAMi ice cream maker, calls for ingredients like lime juice, orange liqueur, tequila and a sweetener of your choice. After blending those ingredients together with ice until the mixture is a smooth consistency, you can pour it into a Ninja CREAMi and it will mix it on its own to make soft serve.

Other posts on social media include similar recipes that also use sugar, heavy cream, salt, whole milk, lime zest and water, with those ingredients also needing to be mixed and run through an ice cream maker to achieve the soft serve texture and consistency.

Kate Perez covers national trends and breaking news for USA TODAY. You can reach her at [email protected] or on X @katecperez_.