Applebee’s Turns $14 Don Julio Cups and Snoop GIN Cocktails Into Bar Traffic

Two $14 margaritas served in 20-ounce, pool-shaped cups customers take home became one of Applebee’s most successful bar promotions of the year — and they explain a lot about how the nation’s biggest neighborhood grill is engineering its beverage program against a tough chain-restaurant backdrop.

Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar spent the past year pairing its full bar with culturally relevant liquor brands, starting with a Valentine’s Day collaboration that most operators wouldn’t have attempted: gin.

The Still Together Sips lineup, built with Still G.I.N. by Dre and Snoop — the gin venture from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart — put two cocktails on the menu. The Young, Wild & Free Fruit Punch mixed the gin with grenadine, lemon sour mix and pineapple juice for $7. The Rollin’ On the Beach, a twist on the classic Sex on the Beach, combined it with peach schnapps and prickly pear, orange and cranberry juices. Each drink arrived with a temporary tattoo.

Nate Grover, Applebee’s executive director of bar and beverage, said the gin tie-in fit a bar that carries every major spirit category rather than a curated short list.

Why gin at a neighborhood grill?

“We are a full bar, so we look for opportunities to celebrate all of the categories,” Grover said. “Our position around variety opened the door for us to partner with them, and the rationale for us was that brands that are winning today are distinct and culturally relevant. There’s nobody more culturally relevant than Snoop, Dre, and Martha.”

The timing helped. The promotion ran while Snoop Dogg was covering the Olympics for NBC, keeping the brand in the cultural conversation. Grover frames the fit in brand terms, not just celebrity terms: “Applebee’s is about friendship and coming together over great food and drinks, and what really drew us to Still G.I.N. was these iconic figures and the relationship and friendship they’ve built over the years.”

The menu engineering behind the drinks was deliberate. Snoop Dogg, the chain learned, drinks gin with punch — hence the fruit punch build. And Rollin’ On the Beach leaned on a cocktail that was already among Applebee’s best sellers. “The naming was about Snoop and Dre’s friendship,” Grover said. The temporary tattoos carried the theme further, “because what’s more endearing than going and getting a tattoo with your loved ones?”

What does this change for the pricing strategy?

The partnerships sit at the premium end of a deliberate barbell. On one end sits the $1 Dollarita, an aggressive entry price that gives price-sensitive guests a reason to say yes. On the other sit limited-time premium experiences like the celebrity collaborations, which give guests a reason to trade up.

“We have a strong focus on value, and for us that can mean both aggressive value like the Dollarita that plays into our barbell strategy with an entry point that gives people a reason to say ‘yes,’ and the notion of abundant value and premium experiences that gives them a reason to trade up,” Grover said.

This summer the chain went premium again with the Poolio with Don Julio promotion. The Sunny Sipper Margarita mixed Don Julio reposado tequila with Malibu coconut rum, blue Curaçao, pineapple juice and lime. The Belly Floppin’ Melon Margarita paired the same tequila with Smirnoff vodka, triple sec, watermelon and lime. Both carried the same $14 price point — double the gin cocktails’ tab from six months earlier — and both came in the oversized, branded pool-shaped takeaway cup.

The cup was doing quiet marketing work. “They prompted guests to talk about it, take out their phones, and post it,” Grover said. “We’re seeing that younger customers, especially, like limited-time exclusives, so this drove a pretty successful promotion for us.”

The pool framing also tied back to the brand’s core identity, he argues: Applebee’s is the neighborhood grill and bar, “and pools are physically in people’s neighborhoods, and pool parties are where friends and families gather.”

The beverage push comes as the Technomic Top 500 reports another difficult year for chain restaurants overall in 2025, with consumers pulling back on dining — even as coffee, beverages and snacks, and chicken segments continue to grow. Beverage-led, brand-partnered promotions are Applebee’s answer: they cost the guest only a modest premium, they cost the chain a licensing conversation rather than a kitchen overhaul, and they generate social media impressions that paid media would price far higher.

Expect the partnership model to continue. A full bar, in Grover’s telling, is a portfolio — and every culturally relevant spirit brand with a story to tell is now a candidate for the next limited-time pour.