Mouths watering, fans await local Sonic Drive-Ins
“The drinks,” said Ed Hammond of Bonney Lake. “They’re like Slurpees with chunks of fresh fruit stuck in it.” He prefers the lemon-berry.
“Cherry lime-aid is the best,” said Tamica Price of Lakewood. What else? “Their cheeseburgers are really good. Their foot-long chili cheese dogs are really good. Their chicken strips. Their breakfast sandwiches. … Everything is really good.”
Price grew up in Texas. Hammond spent a few years working in Texas. Everything’s big in Texas, including Sonic Drive-Ins.
So when I broke the news a year ago that Sonic scouts had targeted the South Sound market as ripe for a boom in their retro drive-ins where uniformed carhops on Rollerblades deliver trays to your car window, I didn’t understand Sonic followers’ fanaticism.
Not since doughnut cravers camped out for Krispy Kreme in Tacoma and South Hill in 2003 has our region seen mouth-watering anticipation so high for a new arrival.
We’d best brush up on Sonicosophy. Because the owner of the Sonic franchise rights in the South Sound says he expects his first drive-in to open by early December – on South Hill. The second one? Bonney Lake in early 2009. With at least 13 more to follow.
Finally. Sonic started running commercials for its drive-ins on Western Washington television stations in 2006. But with the closest one two hours away in Vancouver, Wash., at the time, it hardly seemed fair.
That explains why nearly 300 folks signed an online petition at gopetition.com begging Sonic management to either pull their tantalizing commercials or build drive-ins in Western Washington.
“I tried Sonic once when we were driving through the Tri-Cities, and it was fantastic,” said Gavin Buck of Federal Way, who signed the petition. (He had the turkey toaster sandwich.) “Then I get home and see this commercial with food that looks so delicious – and its like, ‘Darn. It’s Sonic.’ It’s not fair.”
Hammond and his wife, Tracy, both signed the petition. When they lived in Waco, Texas, Hammond said, they had five Sonic drive-ins in town.
“We would eat at Sonic all the time,” he said. “We just got back from Arizona … and we went out of our way to go to Sonic.”
When I broke the news that Bonney Lake would get Sonic No. 2 in Pierce County, Hammond yelled, “Sweet!” then pulled the phone away to tell Tracy. I heard her echo, “Sweet!” in the background.
Some other petition signers posted comments of desperation:
• “Oh, god. Please stop the torture. I need limeade,” wrote Theresa Skager of Ruston.
• “I moved here from a small town in Arizona and had access to three Sonics within 10 miles of my house,” wrote Brady Lively of Bothell. “When I moved here I couldn’t believe my ears when I was told there was no Sonic here. The only one I know of is in Spokane, and that’s no Sunday drive.”
• “I grew up in Kansas with a Sonic almost every 5 miles away,” wrote Rebekah Milton of Kent. “Every time I see a commercial I want to throw something at the TV, because I love Sonic but there isn’t one around. Please give us a Sonic. Or stop teasing me. All I want is a cherry limeade and an extra-long cheese coney.”
• “When I was pregnant,” Tabitha Brothers wrote, “me and my husband had to drive all the way to Oregon because I had to have Sonic. Not fair.”
With all the Sonic angst out there, you’d probably guess that J. David Orem, the Mercer Island businessman who negotiated the franchise rights to bring us, eventually, 15 drive-ins, would have a historic Sonic streak in him too. You’d guess wrong.
No, Orem runs Northwestern Restaurants Inc., which owns more than 21 Taco Bell restaurants and four Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combination restaurants. When a friend in the real estate business introduced him to a Sonic corporate representative last year, Orem had never tasted anything Sonic.
“I knew of them and their good reputation,” Orem said. “I wanted to go find out what the hubbub and excitement was all about. I thought the food very good. They have a huge selection of drinks that you can mix and customize. And with the kids on rollerblades … it was a retro feel back to the old days of A&W.”
Orem calls himself a fan of the breakfast burrito.
But he hadn’t heard of the online petition when I talked to him this week. He chuckled at the news.
Apparently when Sonic makes its advertising buys, it targets regions intended for new markets. That strategy, however torturous, has helped jump-start sales at new drive-ins, Orem said.
And even though we still have to wait five months for the 620-calorie, 44-ounce blue coconut slush and the 880-calorie Super Sonic cheeseburger, Orem’s company posted a classified ad in The News Tribune to hire his team of managers and assistant managers.
The intensive 17-week training program involves sending new hires to Sonic headquarters in Oklahoma City then out to new drive-in openings around the country.
Finally, remember this advice from Sonic fan Price: “Keep an open mind and taste everything you can.”
Source: DAN VOELPEL; THE NEWS TRIBUNE