‘We want to give Swig a run for their money’: Thirst Drinks and Wetzel’s Pretzels open in St. George

Written by Truman Burgess
July 31, 2022

ST. GEORGE — Dozens of bumper-to-bumper cars stretched from East St. George Boulevard to beyond University Avenue, past the city cemetery on Saturday. Residents waited in line for two hours to drive through the grand opening of Thirst Drinks’ first location in Southern Utah, equipped with a professional DJ blaring dance music on the store’s balcony for the day. 

View of Thirst Drinks powered by Wetzel’s Pretzels’ grand opening, St. George, Utah, July 30, 2022 | Photo by Truman Burgess

Unlike the company’s other five stores in Northern Utah, this location is in partnership with Wetzel’s Pretzels, selling the two companies’ products out one drive-through window. Customers of the grand opening received a free bag of pretzel bites and popcorn.

Ethan Cisneros, the co-founder and president of Thirst Drinks, personally served every car that drove through the store on Saturday, despite the oppressive humidity and heat.

“(St. George) is the original spot of the ‘dirty soda’ concept,” he said. “Swig originated the whole thing. They pioneered the idea of mixed soda, the whole Utah-soda-craze. We wanted to come here because this is where it all began.”

“We want to give Swig a run for their money. We’re bringing a new spin to the game with fresh, baked pretzels, from scratch. We’re more than just cold cookies and soda. We wanted to come here to prove ourselves.”

Cisneros said that Wetzel’s Pretzels is generally a mall-only store, and the company wanted to expand. Since Thirst had already been crafting pretzels at their own locations, Cisneros thought it would be a mutually beneficial business opportunity to join up for the St. George location.

In 2016, Cisneros was 18 years old and a first-semester college student in the Salt Lake City area. He created Thirst as his own business in that first semester, then dropped out to focus on his store location.

“I love the sport of business, and the soda craze hadn’t hit Salt Lake yet. I opened one of the first soda shops in the city, downtown. No one came, at first. No one. We had around $100 to $200 revenue days. I worked every shift for the first three years, myself. It’s been a slow grind, but it’s paid off. Now we’re on our sixth store.”

View of Thirst Drinks powered by Wetzel’s Pretzels’ grand opening, St. George, Utah, July 30, 2022 | Photo by Truman Burgess

“I learned to be grateful for customers. I try to make every customer interaction to be real. I like to earn my customers. I think people look for a short way out, but really the answer is we need to provide a really good experience, and we need to have really good products. We treat them well, give them good stuff, and they usually come back.”

Rachel Nilsen, Thirst Drinks’ Chief Marketing Officer and co-owner, worked alongside Cisneros all day Saturday, helping take orders and hand-delivery complimentary popcorn.

Nilsen began working for Thirst in 2018, taking the job as a soda-making team member in a small Thirst location at the University of Utah. She originally took the job to gain some extra money while studying at the university, working just a few nights a week.

“It really grew on me, and my position grew to where I started doing marketing,” she said. “I dropped out of school. Now, here we are, opening multiple stores. I started working just a couple nights a week, and now it’s 24/7. I love it.” 

View of Thirst Drinks powered by Wetzel’s Pretzels’ grand opening, St. George, Utah, July 30, 2022 | Photo by Truman Burgess

On most days, Nilsen spends a lot of time and effort developing the company’s TikTok and Instagram accounts, working out of the Millcreek location. She will then transition to one of the Salt Lake offices and “hunker down” in her work.  She said some people online question the idea of adding even more sugar to soda. Nilsen said if they’d just try the soda, they’d learn how delicious it is.

Every week, Nilsen assesses the drinks others have recommended online and within the company, and she creates a new “drink of the week” across the company. If the drink sells well and receives good feedback, it’ll likely be added as a permanent part of the menu.

The company’s Instagram page is @thirstdrinks, and the St. George menu can be found here.

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Truman Burgess grew up in Washington state, Virginia and Arizona. He graduated from BYU-Idaho with a bachelor's degree in English. Before starting at St. George News in 2022, Truman was an editorial reporter and lead copy editor for "Scroll," a news service in Idaho. He won Idaho Press Club's 2021 award for best student column of the year. When he's not reporting or writing, Truman spends his time Latin dancing with his fiance and climbing trees with his kids.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @STGnews

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