Six years ago, Mark Lazarchic watched a YouTube video that changed his plans. It was a video about Galcos Old World Grocery in Los Angeles. As that grocery store started to face problems, they began shifting their business from grocery to sodas. They now carry more than 700 different bottles of soda.
After seeing that story, Mark decided that he wanted to open a soda shop someday.
After the buying the building that Blue Sun Soda Shop is in, he started to buy the merchandise.
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Mark does make some exceptions to his goal to have every soda. He does not carry traditional beverages from Coke or Pepsi, but he does carry the Mexican versions of those sodas that are manufactured differently, and made with real sugar.
After talking to nearly every soda maker in the country, he had about 80,000 bottles in the store that at meticulously sorted in 21 different categories including: root beer, diet, melon, blueberry, lemon and cream.
He is working on trying every soda he sells, but it will probably be a few years before he achieves that goal. He drink one or two a day, and has currently tasted about 230 different bottles.
“Right now, my favorite is Spring Grove, which is out of Minnesota, their Rhuberry soda, which is a mixture of rhubarb and berries put together,” said Lazarchic.
They also sell old fashioned candy, and plan to bring in local soda makers for tastings.
So, whether you like fruit flavored sodas, cream sodas, colas, or even cucumber soda, Blue Sun Soda Shop can help you find what you are looking for.
“There’s over 1100 sodas, I guarantee you are going to see stuff you never even thought existed before,” said Lazarchic.
Blue Sun Soda Shop just might be the largest soda bottle shop in the country. Mark hasn’t been able to find a store that sells more than 800 different kinds of soda yet. He said he has more than 300 new ones on the way too, which should soon move him up to nearly 1,400 different sodas in the store.
