The ‘it’ drink of the spring has arrived in Philly
Philly bars are putting their own spin on soft serve margaritas
Across Philadelphia, bartenders have been racing to see who would be the first to touch the new frontier of frozen cocktails: the soft serve margarita.
Videos of the not-quite-dessert, not-quite-beverage hybrid went viral on social media in mid-March when Cleveland, Ohio’s La Playa Mexican Food & Mariscos started posting AI-generated footage on Instagram and TikTok of their very real soft serve margaritas, which come loaded with tequila and swirled in rotating flavors that range from watermelon and strawberry to piña colada. Since then, the concoctions have popped up everywhere from Houston, Texas and New Orleans to suburban Alabama and upstate New York, all driven by clips of bartenders piping creamy margs into cocktail glasses with a Mister Softee-esque flourish.
When The Ridley House’s beverage director Joanie Caguiat stumbled upon the trend, she immediately commandeered the soft serve machine inside the Holmes, Pa., American restaurant, hand-mixing their house cherry and mango margarita mixes into their soft serve in 1-to-3 ratio before feeding it through the machine.
The result: a sorbet-like cherry mango twist with a Tajín rim that you have to eat with a spoon. Ridley House started serving them on March 28, smack in the middle of an early spring cold spell.
“Even though the weather was not that great, we had to launch it,” Caguiat said. “We needed to the be first.”
Since then, Ridley House serves roughly 200 a night, thanks to social media posts declaring the Delaware County establishment was the “fruity, tequila-soaked, and sugary” patient zero of Philly’s soft soft serve marg epidemic. Caguiat said she’s seen customers come from as far away as Baltimore, M.D., for the $15 cocktail, and even watched one man pound four plain mango varieties back-to-back. She doesn’t advise that.
“It’s like having four ice cream sundaes. The dairy will get you before the alcohol does,” Caguiat said.
Since then, other Philadelphia area bars have followed suit — each with their own approach to figuring how to mix tequila, lime, and triple sec with dairy without it curdling.
Attico — the Cambria Hotel’s rooftop bar at 219 S. Broad Street — started serving their soft serve margaritas on April 1. There, beverage director Matt Hubsher created a bona fide soft serve infused with tequila from the Philly-based Millstone Spirits Group. Hubsher’s recipe calls for sweetened condensed milk and citric acid, plus a dose of guar gum (for creaminess) and carrageenan, a seaweed-derived preservative commonly found in ice cream.
“We found out the hard way that citrus and dairy don’t like to live together, ” Hubsher said. Without the additives, the mixture “separates out into curds and whey, which is basically the start of making cheese.”
Attico’s bartenders create the menu’s five flavors — spicy, peach, strawberry, guava, and passionfruit — by drizzling a couple of drops of syrup atop the $17 cocktail. It unfurls out of a Carpigiani V Air Dream slushee machine in polite dollops and is wickedly strong, smacking you in the face extra hard on spoonfuls that aren’t coated in flavored syrup. They’ve sold out of the soft serve margs mid-shift most days, Hubsher said.
Just three blocks away in Center City at DBG (formerly Drury Beer Garden), batches of strawberry soft serve margs swirl inside a standard slushie machine. The beer garden started serving their version on April 8 and it’s the most simple: Just strawberry puree, simple syrup, their well tequila, triple sec, and heavy cream — lots of it.
DBG’s is most similar to a traditional frozen margarita. Served with a straw, it melts down to a compulsively slurpable liquid in the spring heat.
Gimmicky frozen cocktails aren’t new: Philly has lived through the boozy milkshake, frosé, and icy espresso martini crazes. But only the soft serve marg plays with form as much as it does the boundary of how much dairy and alcohol anyone should consume at once.
For DBG’s manager and soft serve marg whisper Maria Carrera, the trend’s explanation is simple. “Everyone loves alcohol and ice cream,” she said with a shrug. It was time to go back moonlighting as an ice cream maker.
» READ MORE: From 2025: Would you drink a Caesar salad martini? South Philly bar O’Jung’s is betting on it
Where to find soft serve margaritas in and around Philly
Attico
The bar atop Center City’s Cambria Hotel will be serving soft margs through at least the end of April, according to General Manager Stacey Lyons, who recommends trying to snag one as soon as they open since they sell out fast. Beverage director Matt Hubsher estimates the $17 drinks clock in at roughly 13% ABV, and are made by spiking a traditional vanilla soft serve with Millstone Spirits tequila. Flavors include peach, strawberry, guava, passionfruit and spicy. Hubsher’s favorite, it’s made by adding drops of their special habanero tincture (peppers steeped in vodka) and a sprinkle of tajin.
📍219 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107, 📞 267-519-0965, 🌐 atticorooftop.com
DBG
The Midtown Village bar will be spinning $15 soft serve margs out of a slushie machine in their backyard beer garden all spring and summer long, according to manager Maria Carrera. Flavors will rotate on a one-to-two week basis, she said, starting with traditional strawberry before getting more adventurous. Next up: strawberry watermelon, followed by mango chamoyada, inspired by the refreshing Mexican street snack.
📍1131 Sansom St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107, 📞 215-545-0170, 🌐 dbgphilly.com
The Ridley House
The first to tackle the soft serve marg trend around Philly, the Delaware County bar’s are made in a real soft serve machine and come in two flavors: cherry and mango, which can also be swirled together for a tropical candy-striped treat. The $15 cocktail tastes like sorbet and goes down a little too easy.
📍2107 MacDade Blvd., Holmes, Pa. 19043, 📞 610-522-5400, 🌐 ridleyhousepa.com
The Rabbit Hole
The Conshohocken bar’s soft serve margaritas have rotated daily since they launched last week, cycling through strawberry, creamsicle, blackberry and classic vanilla. The $17 cocktail is swirled into a martini glass for full effect. General manager Laurel Kolber told The Inquirer over email that the bar is working on a dairy free version, and recommends you call in advance to hear the flavor of the day.
📍201 W. Sixth Ave., Conshohocken, Pa. 19428, 📞 610-357-2191, 🌐 therabbitholeconshy.com
