Sonic Operations

Alpha8472
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Sonic Operations

Post by Alpha8472 »

Sonic is selling a mood ring inspired by their Slush beverages called the Sonic Slush Ring for $9.99. The ring looks like their signature white cups and can help you decide which flavor to order. They are also selling a My Slush Tee and My Slush tote bag.

Are they really making money on selling non food items? It says that 100 percent of proceeds from the ring will be donated to public schools.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by storewanderer »

Is Sonic capable of serving food that is actually hot, and taking less than 15 minutes to serve 3 cars in the drive through?

In Reno area, the answer is NO. And has been for over a decade. I am surprised they are still in business.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by cjd »

I went to Sonic today and as soon as I walked in the floor was so slippery and sticky I thought I was going to slip. It felt so nasty I wanted to pressure wash my shoes before I set foot back in my car!

The ceiling in the restroom had mildew in spots. The air vents in the dining room had dust all around them.

I started to leave but ordered anyway. I will say the food came out fresh and hot. The service was good. I just don't understand why they would let the floors get so slippery. Is it grease? Is it something they are mopping with?

I wanted to try the new Sour Patch Kids float but I didn't feel up to it after all that. Maybe soon.

I do like Sonic because they offer items few other fast food places do. Having both tater tots and corndogs. The food does usually seem better than what you get at the typical fast food places, and the prices are really not that much higher.
Last edited by cjd on June 12th, 2022, 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Alpha8472
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by Alpha8472 »

There seems to be many places with Sour Patch drinks now. I tried the Sour Patch Froster at Circle K recently. It was decent and not too sour.

People say the Sour Patch Kids Slush float is not so great. It is really sour and the lump of ice cream on top is so thick that you cannot drink it through the straw. You need a spoon to eat the lump on top and then you have a way too sour drink on the bottom.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by storewanderer »

I am surprised Sonic is even in business. Always cold food.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by mbz321 »

storewanderer wrote: June 12th, 2022, 7:58 pm I am surprised Sonic is even in business. Always cold food.
The Sonic franchisee in my area basically closed all their locations (Philly area) around the time of the Pandemic. In the past year, they've reopened with different ownership, but based on the reviews, which are universally poor, nothing has changed, and in fact, have become even worse.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by storewanderer »

mbz321 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 9:28 pm
storewanderer wrote: June 12th, 2022, 7:58 pm I am surprised Sonic is even in business. Always cold food.
The Sonic franchisee in my area basically closed all their locations (Philly area) around the time of the Pandemic. In the past year, they've reopened with different ownership, but based on the reviews, which are universally poor, nothing has changed, and in fact, have become even worse.
These Sonic units seem to be able to stay in business with extremely low customer counts. And business is even worse than it looks when you factor in how slow their service is. When you see 5 cars at Sonic it doesn't mean much because they take 5+ minutes per order and somehow the food still manages to be cold despite making the customer wait for an amount of time that you would assume means it was actually cooked to order.

There is a Sonic in North Reno that is actually quite busy. It actually has hundreds of transactions per day and often has a long line for drive through any many car hop spaces occupied. I attribute its popularity to a lack of options in the area. Sure, there is a Burger King across the street, a Wendys (busy one) nearby, an Arbys nearby (busy when it is open, which isn't reliable), but to get McDonalds you have to drive to a different offramp/area.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by Brian Lutz »

The Sonic in Marysville is generally OK when it comes to food quality and temperature, but for at least the last year they have had signs taped over the drive in kiosks saying that you can only order from the drive-thru. If you order through the app and pull into a stall they will still bring your food out to you, but they don't advertise this and I suspect they would remove this option too if there was a way to do so. Hard to tell if this is merely the store being short staffed or if they just don't want to operate the stalls anymore. I do like the chili dogs on occasion, but most of the time I go now for the drinks and the ice cream.

There is another Sonic currently under construction in Everett at the intersection of Everett Mall Way and Evergreen Way Given the fact that the development also includes a Glint Car Wash (which also happens to be located next door to the Sonic and Arby's in Marysville) I would assume this is being run by the same franchisee as the Marysville one.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by pseudo3d »

To be fair, I live in Texas, where Sonics are extremely common (almost as common as McDonald's--there are maybe about 1200 McDonald's restaurants to 900 Sonic restaurants)...but between 2001 and 2006, I remember that construction of Sonic restaurants just took off...they went from about four Sonic restaurants to about eight. Since then, two have closed without replacement (including a mall location, which by the end of its lease had abysmal numbers) and no new locations have opened since except for a replacement location relating to a gas station location.
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Re: Sonic Operations

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: April 5th, 2022, 7:49 pm Is Sonic capable of serving food that is actually hot, and taking less than 15 minutes to serve 3 cars in the drive through?

In Reno area, the answer is NO. And has been for over a decade. I am surprised they are still in business.
Inspire Brands needs to take a look at the Reno stores... went to Carson and all the carhop areas were blocked off, 20 cars in drive through.
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