Courtesy of Pupusas y Tacos Los Reyes
Audio By Carbonatix
Is there anything better than a frozen margarita on a hot summer day? Well, maybe.
Just in time for Cinco de Mayo — and patio season, for that matter — the classic Mexican cocktail has gotten a glow-up. Cold, creamy, and thick enough to eat with a spoon, soft-serve margaritas are a new phenomenon that went viral on social media a couple of months ago and are now beginning to make a splash (or maybe a splat, given their consistency) right here in Denver.
As of now, only a few places in Denver are serving it. That’s because — unlike coarsely slushy frozen margaritas, which can be made in a blender — the soft-serve version requires investing in and finding space for a soft-serve machine. One restaurant that’s done so is Pupusas y Tacos Los Reyes in southeast Denver.
“I saw a video [posted by] a place in Texas called Doña Leti’s,” says Joan Velazquez, whose mother, Maria Carbajal, is the restaurant’s owner. “It was like two in the morning, [but] I ran upstairs and knocked on my mom’s door: ‘I got a great idea… soft-serve margaritas! We can purchase a machine and try it!’”
Carbajal herself wasn’t gung-ho at first due to the expense: The new machine cost a whopping $26,000.
“It was a very huge investment,” Velazquez acknowledges. “But it’s definitely been the best investment, because on Saturdays and Sundays, we’re probably making over 300 at $17 a pop.”
But getting there took plenty of trial and error.
“We failed multiple times,” recalls Velazquez. “We used about 24 bottles of tequila just to find a perfect mix.”
They came up with a recipe involving coconut cream and agave syrup as well as tequila and margarita mix. On April 7, they announced on their social channels that Los Reyes was officially in the soft-serve margarita game.
Courtesy of Pupusas y Tacos Los Reyes
“That’s when people started coming in, and the next thing you know, we see ourselves on two different TikToks,” says Velazquez. “The next day, we got super-packed, and the machine we had was really, really small. But we saw that the demand was there, so we ended up buying a really big industrial one, and since then, soft-serve margaritas have been blowing up.”
They’ve tweaked the recipe since they introduced the drink, and today use fruit purees and xanthan gum instead of coconut cream. They’ll also refresh the available flavors from mango and strawberry to watermelon and lemon drop this month; those will be followed in the months to come by the likes of passion fruit, guava, and, in October… pumpkin spice.
The festive (and, yes, immensely Instagrammable) concoction comes topped with chamoy and Tajín, and garnished with lime, strawberry halves, a flower, and a tamarind stick.
Customer reactions have been just as bright. says Velazquez: “When they take the first bite, they’re just, like, ‘Whoa, this is amazing. . . . This is the best thing I’ve ever tried.’ It definitely puts a smile on my face.”
He’s not the only one smiling. Moose Hill Cantina in Lakewood actually beat Los Reyes to the punch by serving its first soft-serve margarita on March 29. Owner Mandi Gaschani couldn’t be more delighted with the results.
Courtesy of Moose Hill Cantina
“This has brought a whole new clientele — a younger, fun clientele — and we’ve tripled our sales,” she says.
Like Carbajal, Gaschani was initially skeptical when her oldest daughter Elysa, a manager at the restaurant, showed her one of the now-ubiquitous videos documenting the cocktail craze.
“We’ve got to hop on his bandwagon,” she recalls Elysa saying. “We don’t know how long it’s going to last, but we’ve got to ride it while we can.”
Gaschani, who’s worked at Moose Hill since she was fifteen and became the owner fifteen years ago, didn’t want yet another piece of equipment to maintain. But Elysa ultimately prevailed, buying a small machine for $7,000.
As at Los Reyes, there were a few hiccups getting the right recipe in place.
“Alcohol doesn’t freeze, so it was coming out soupy,” Gaschani says. “Then we found the exact mixture [of] margarita mix, tequila, Grand Marnier, and soft-serve mix, and it came out to a perfect texture.” Since then, the initially skeptical Gaschani has upgraded to four machines, with one dedicated to a nonalcoholic version of the drink, for a total expenditure of about $18,000.
But the machines have more than paid for themselves. The morning after posting a picture of Moose Hill’s new, $15 soft-serve margarita on Facebook, she arrived at the restaurant to find a line waiting outside the building that stretched into the parking lot. A few hours later, influencer Denver Food Scene showed up.
“They posted that night, and they said it was one of their top-viewed videos,” Gaschani says. “From then on, it’s just been crazy. On weekends, we have a two-hour wait.” (A segment on 9News hasn’t hurt business, either.)
Pineapple is the most popular flavor — not least because it’s dairy-free, according to Gaschani — but she’s keeping other flavors in rotation as well, including blue coconut, strawberry, peach and cherry, while toppings range from chamoy to Tajín, and fresh fruit to Nerds and boba. An extra shot of tequila is also an option.
And as of April 30, Moose Hill now offers not only soft-serve margaritas but soft-serve Moose Milk: the restaurant’s housemade cream liquor that’s been a secret recipe for years. Gaschani hints that she might give daiquiris a whirl as well.
“This has just been fun and a wild ride, and I’m so thankful that my daughter made me step out of the box,” she says.
As with so many trends that spread like wildfire online, determining the origin of the dessert-worthy drink isn’t easy. Most recent articles credit La Playa Mariscos & Mexican Food in Cleveland, Ohio, with its invention (or at least making it popular). But USA Today reported that a brewery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been making it for years. In any case, given that it’s everywhere you look on Instagram and TikTok these days, you could reasonably expect to find it everywhere in real life, too.
While not quite everywhere in Denver just yet, the LoHi location of My Neighbor Felix is also slinging the soft-serve sensation, offering your choice of orange or pineapple. And expense notwithstanding, we’re willing to bet more Denver restaurants will be whipping up their own versions in the months to come.
Pupusas y Tacos Los Reyes is located at 10101 East Hampden Avenue, and is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday. Moose Hill Cantina is located at 11911 West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood, and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit pupusasytacos.com or moosehillcantinas.com.
