The line gave her away.
It was a Thursday evening at the UTC Night Market, and the longest wait on the grounds was for a pink and blue drink trailer called Dirty SaraSoda.
It was Amber Hanratty’s first night at the market after months on the wait list, and the crowd found her fast.
Dirty Sodas?
If you haven’t run into one yet, a dirty soda is fountain soda dressed up: flavored syrups, cream, fresh fruit, sometimes a gummy riding on top.
The trend came out of Utah and has been spreading across the country for a few years now, mostly through TikTok.
Amber’s twist is that most of the menu is local. About 80 percent of the drinks are named after Sarasota landmarks.
The Ringling is Coke with cherry, vanilla cream and cherries. St. Armand Swirl tops root beer with butterscotch, half and half and cold foam. And Siesta Beach turns Dr. Pepper tropical with raspberry and vanilla cold foam.
The menu doubles as a tour around town.
From blueprints to soda
Amber never planned on running a drink trailer. She spent about 25 years in the home building industry and stepped away in the summer of 2025 without a next act lined up.
But the next act found her on TikTok. She kept landing on videos of women all over the country running dirty soda businesses. Some had a tent, some had a trailer, some had a storefront.
“They were creating their own events, going to their own events, working with friends, just having a really good time and making a killing doing it,” she told us. “I just wanted a change, and I wanted something fun.”
She launched Dirty SaraSoda in January 2026. Her husband, a designer, built the branding from scratch, and it shows. The trailer looks like it belongs to a company ten times her size.
The hustle part
Ask Amber why the line is so long and she doesn’t credit the drinks first. She credits the legwork.
“I hustle every day. I call places, I email, I go knock on doors, whatever I’ve got to do.” The goal is to introduce dirty soda to people who have never heard of it, one market and one office at a time.
That legwork has earned her a spot across the area’s market and festival circuit, from the UTC Night Market and Ranch Nite Wednesdays to the Big Top Food Truck Rally, the Fruitville Grove Pumpkin Festival, and the late-night vintage markets at Möbius.
The pattern with the organizers she works with is simple: she gets invited back.
Where to find her
Dirty SaraSoda doesn’t have a fixed address, so the schedule lives on social. Amber posts it every week on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at @dirtysarasoda.
Beyond markets and festivals, she also books birthday parties, school events, and office pop-ups. For indoor gigs, she skips the trailer entirely and sets up a table like a bartender. There’s also a branded 10x10 tent for everything in between.
However you catch her, don’t expect to be the only one in line.