6 Best Chain Restaurant Signature Cocktails And 6 Worst, According To Reviews

Casual chain restaurants like TGI Fridays or Chili's have long been American culinary staples. For some, they are considered worthy destinations for reliably tasty food, others see them as necessary evils, and others still might view them as a blight upon America's already broken food scene. Either way, they are inescapable: Whether you want to or not, you will spy them from the highway as you head to and from work every day, or you may even end up at one after a long and exhausting shopping trip to the mall, where the choices are between the Ruby Tuesday and the Cinnabon.

Luckily, you'll be able to dampen your disappointment (or increase the enjoyment of your experience) with a cocktail. These establishments are not only known for their excessively large portions of potato skins or hot wings, but also for their fishbowl-sized cocktails, which, more often than not, come in decidedly unnatural but fun and bright colors. 

The rise of cocktail culture in chain restaurants can be attributed to a growing consumer demand for more innovative drink options. Patrons are no longer satisfied with standard, run-of-the-mill cocktails; they want new flavors and visually stunning presentations. Chain restaurants have responded by introducing a bevy of new drinks with creative twists and even more creative names. Some of these are worth ordering, while others should cause you to run for the hills. Let's take a look at the best and worst of them based on professional and consumer reviews.

If you're not Captain Hook or otherwise intimidated by the concept of crocodiles, you might just enjoy the Croc-Tail cocktail at Outback Steakhouse. It is predictably green, and it comes with a whimsical little plastic crocodile, which you get to keep. As for substance, the drink is made with Svedka vodka, Midori (which helps with the green), kiwi, mango, and citrus juices. The drink has been so popular that users across all manner of social media, including X and TikTok, have been raving about it, mostly commenting on its appearance. But since we drink with our eyes as well as our taste buds, that's enough to put this drink on the map, as far as we're concerned.

Bear in mind that thanks to the Midori and all the fruit, this is a sweet drink. But the acidity of the citrus juices helps to balance that out, so the drink isn't cloyingly sweet. Another plus is that the drink can be made alcohol-free by simply leaving out the vodka and Midori and keeping the best parts intact, including, and, most crucially, the plastic crocodile. Though be aware that without the Midori, the drink is a little less green, but just as swampy looking, which is mostly the point, anyway.

Olive Garden is known for its breadsticks, and maybe it should stick to that, or at least not try to take on more complicated items than it can handle. This seems to be the consensus when it comes to the restaurant's Blue Amalfi cocktail, a southern Italian twist on a Blue Velvet. It is made with vodka, blue curaçao, and lemonade and is designed to evoke the crystal blue waters that define the Amalfi coast. But, according to a Daily Meal Olive Garden reviewer, the appearance of the drink is just about the only thing that recalls Amalfi, or that recalls anything good, for that matter. The drink is reportedly overly tart, without any ingredients present to balance out the sourness. On top of that, according to the reviewer, there are no other redeeming qualities, as the drink lacks total depth of flavor.

While the attempt at Italian-izing an American cocktail to keep with the Olive Garden's whole Italian theme is admirable, this gimmick only works if the riffed drink is actually tasty. This one seems to lean so heavily on the color factor that it forgot that excessive blue curaçao can lead to a sharp and unpleasant flavor. Reducing its amount compared to the lemonade would also dampen the color effect, leading to a cocktail that is lackluster in both color and flavor. Perhaps it's best if you just admire this one from afar and order a different drink when you're at Olive Garden.

When you hear the words Italian Margarita, you might think of the popular pizza, which is actually spelled margherita (though it's pronounced nearly the same). But at Olive Garden, it could mean that, or it could be the cocktail, which is made with the typical margarita ingredients, such as tequila and triple sec, and is then served with a shot glass of Amaretto, which you can mix into your drink or use as a chaser. This variation seems meant to recall the tastes of Italy and remind diners that they are in an Italian-themed restaurant, in case you were inclined to disagree.

But this twist is also well liked by Olive Garden patrons, aside from one reviewer who called it merely "half-bad." For the most part, review sites are bursting with positive reviews of this drink, even among diners who didn't much appreciate Olive Garden more broadly. For instance, one TripAdvisor user praised the margarita while calling for the restaurant to get its cleaning act together, while another said, "if you want to make that same old OG meal special try their Italian Margarita. Really tasty and substantial," in the same review where they called the food "not spectacular but good and dependable."

The problem with this frozen drink might not be that it's the worst of the worst, but that it looks incredibly inviting, especially on a hot day when you're looking for something fresh and light to sip on by the pool. But then, alas, it fails to deliver on its apparent promises. This frozen drink contains vodka, peach liqueur, peaches, and raspberry, but, according to a Cheesecake Factory cocktail reviewer for Mashed, it lacks a certain sourness to undercut all those sweet ingredients. Indeed, the Georgia Peach reportedly comes "across as just a sugary cocktail that lacks any kind of complexity, and instead delivers flat, uneventful sweetness." You may as well just bite into an actual peach, or stick with a tried and true classic Bellini.

That said, a lot of people like this kind of sweet and fruity flavor, as evidenced by various review platforms. One reviewer on Yelp wrote that they "could sit there all day drinking those," while another said the "Georgia Peach looks like a peach and is quite pleasing." A TripAdvisor user even said that "the Georgia Peach was dangerous," apparently in a good way. But that doesn't make it the best. If you can't stand overly sweet drinks, skip this one.

Olive Garden may have flopped with a drink or two, but that doesn't mean the chain doesn't know how to make a cocktail at all. Not only that, but they're not all saccharine concoctions designed to elevate customers to a sugar high before they even feel the effects of the alcohol. Indeed, the amaretto sour is one of the least sweet drinks on the menu, and that seems to be one of the reasons it's well-liked, especially by those who prefer more mature drinks. Indeed, chain restaurant drink menus seem to really go to town on those ultra-sweet drinks, so a concoction that shies away from that trend comes as a breath of fresh air.

Another quality of this drink is that the Amaretto shines through. Its unique blend of sweetness and bitterness is decidedly noticeable and alone makes up two parts of the sweet, sour, and bitter trifecta that make this cocktail work. The sour part comes from the sour mix, which seems balanced enough to avoid overpowering the amaretto. Since Amaretto is traditionally taken as a digestif, you should have this cocktail after your meal in order to enjoy its full effect. It may even help you digest all those bread sticks you couldn't stop eating.

When a reviewer says that a cocktail they tried came in a really tall glass that was "roughly the size of a human baby," as with Buzzfeed, you know you're in for something weird, and probably not good. This is the case with the Ruby Relaxer, a cocktail available at Ruby Tuesday made with Absolut Vodka, Cruzan, coconut rum, peach schnapps, and pineapple and cranberry juices. First of all, consider the name: Given the tropical bent of the ingredients, we get what the it's trying to do here — it's time to relax by the beach and take it easy.

But, unfortunately, that's not what it sounds like. Rather, the name is more akin to that of a sedative or laxative — neither of which is appropriate for date night, for very different reasons. Second, the taste is not up to par. If you like sweet drinks, you may still get through a human baby-sized glass of this, but if not, know that between the coconut rum and peach schnapps, you're getting something that is beyond sweet without hope for any kind of balance. At the same time, "the flavors seemed to be fighting with each other," as one of the Buzzfeed reviewers wrote, while another noted that the cocktail came with a "funky aftertaste. Kind of like gasoline?" We may never know the answer to that question, and perhaps we ought to keep it that way.

Outback Steakhouse is clearly an Australian-themed restaurant chain, so it stands to reason that it would want to periodically whip up excitement about the country through its dishes and drinks. Luckily, there seems to be no shortage of word play for naming these items, including with the Wallaby Darned cocktail, which is a frozen blend of peaches, Prosecco, vodka, and peach schnapps, which can be made even more darned with the addition of extra shots of vodka and peach schnapps. Another example, aside from the aforementioned CrocTail, is the recent addition of the Shark Bite drink, which comes with a burst of grenadine that looks unsettlingly like blood.

One Yelp user said the Wallaby Darned was "one of the best drinks I've had!" while another said it was "more like heaven." On Top Secret Recipes, one reviewer said, "the first time I had the Wallaby Darned I fell head over heels for it. It is a great summertime drink." Other reviewers from this platform seemed to prefer the drink with some personal variations, including personal touches like adding grenadine or sugar. But for many cocktail drinkers, too much sweetness can take away from the overall taste of a drink, so it looks like Outback Steakhouse got it right with this one.

In case you hadn't guessed it, the Lobsterita at Red Lobster is a take on the classic margarita. But a piece of lobster, any piece of it, is probably the last thing you'd want to find in your sweet and sour cocktail. While it may be a fun addition to a Bloody Mary, which sometimes incorporates shrimp as a garnish, lobster does not necessarily pair well with margarita mix. And, luckily, that is not what's happening with the Lobsterita, which gets its name not from actual lobster as an ingredient, but from the red color of the drink, which is imparted by the blended raspberries.

But the Lobsterita falls short in other ways. Although one TripAdvisor reviewer called these cocktails delicious, they expressed disappointment at the fact that they did "not seem to have much alcohol in them for the size/price." Perhaps there are cocktails out there that taste worse than the Lobsterita, but in terms of un-met expectations, this drink really seems to have taken the cake.

People flock to TGI Fridays for the casual dining, but little do many of them know that the chain actually started out primarily as a drinking establishment. And not just any drinking establishment: The bartending program at TGI Fridays was so rigorous that trainees had to learn how to prepare 400 drinks, 25 of which they had to know how to make blindfolded. There are even rumors that in its heyday, TGI Fridays required bartenders to use fresh juices in their drinks.

Now, we know those days are long gone, but the chain can still deliver a few decent cocktails. One of them is the Cotton Candy Cosmo, made with vodka, cranberry, pineapple, and the star ingredient. As one reviewer described it, this is a tropical, pineapple-forward drink that comes with all the visual benefits of cotton candy without any of the chemically aftertaste. In other words, the cotton candy in this drink is really just a garnish. Meanwhile, a TripAdvisor user called this drink "absolutely divine! It's very sweet but incredibly delicious!"

One does not typically go to Applebee's because they want to increase their exposure to nutritious ingredients. This is even truer when it comes to the restaurant chain's cocktails, which are often huge and involve questionable food dyes. So it should come as no surprise that one of the worst cocktails on this list, the Mucho Shark Bowl Cocktail, can be found at Applebee's.

This particular scourge of the seas is a frozen drink made with Captain Morgan rum and tropical fruit flavors, and is garnished with a charming little shark gummy. Just one of these puppies is a whopping 660 calories and 119 grams of sugar, not counting the gummy shark. But perhaps we shouldn't be going to Applebee's for the drinks at all. In a recent survey conducted by Mashed, more than 25% of respondents indicated that the chain needs to improve its drinks menu.

If you're into the type of cocktail that's more like a meal than a drink, you might enjoy TGI Fridays' frozen mudslide, at least according to New York-based beverage consultant Pamela Wiznitzer. As she told Vinepair, "no matter where you go, if it's listed on the menu or not, you can always order this classic up for a phenomenally cold sip."

The drink, or dessert, if you will, is made with vodka, coffee liqueur, Baileys, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate syrup and is as good to look at as it is to savor. Given all the sugary items and coffee flavors involved in this drink, you might want to steer clear of it if you're not a fan of these ingredients, but, otherwise, they make a winning combination. If you're enamored with it now, you can also purchase Fridays' pre-made mudslide in a bottle, which includes rum with chocolate and coffee flavors.

Most customer reviews of chain restaurant cocktails revolve around the alleged low alcohol content. Many people seem to think the drinks should be stronger, and claim that they're getting swindled given the high prices they're asked to pay for so little alcohol. But in the case of the Spice-A-Rita and Nice-A-Rita, two of Chili's cocktail inventions that came out this past winter, the opposite is true. Indeed, a customer recently posted a video — which went viral — complaining about these drinks being so strong that they "got me finna pass out...," as she posted on her TikTok account.

Predictably, many of the responses to the customer's warning noted that the strength of the cocktail just made them want to try it even more. Some even noted that the Espolón Reposado Tequila used in the recipe for both these takes on a classic margarita, happens to be an especially strong one. Both drinks are made with this tequila, along with Grand Mariner and a margarita mix, but only the Spice-A-Rita also includes jalapeño and Tajín, making it as spicy as the name promises.