Sonic Drive-In

In a word: In your car.

The specs: #0602
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JM ate the popcorn chicken and a Green Apple Slush.
Nichole ate the #3 combo, the extra long chili cheese coney with a diet cherry limeade.
We split some tots.
The bill was $12, or $6/person, plus tip.
JM gave Sonic Drive-In a C+; Nichole gave Sonic Drive-In a D+ (see our grading rubric).

Sonic is a drive-in with its own radio station, which is kinda neat, but the food's just, like, fast. JM's popcorn chicken was at least 85% breading and at $4 kind of pricey for what he got. The giant vat of slushee was tasty but had the problem that all crushed ice-based syrup drinks have, namely, the syrup runs out before the ice does. 

Nichole skimmed the chili (surprisingly good, meaty with a little heat) off the coney and ate the dog, but most of the squishy bun went back in the trash bag. They no longer serve a side of slaw though it's on the menu, which made her sad. The cherry limeade was tart and the slices of real lime were fresh.

JM nailed it: the whole draw of Sonic is that you're eating in your car and thus can bring dependents (of the two or four footed kind) without much fuss. Sonic could also be fun in a large group or if, say, MRD rolled up and did some sort of guerilla waitron smackdown show.  (Oh, how we've longed to use the phrase "guerilla waitron smackdown show".)

Comments

[Elizabeth]

We stopped there once. I love onion rings and I am not too picky about them. However, these were disgusting. They tasted sweet. Their secret ingredient is vanilla ice milk mix in the batter.

[ap]

Any place that substitutes tater tots for fries gets at least a B by my curve. And their slushy limeades are really good, especially if you take the vat home and add tequila for a super-easy pitcher of margaritas!

[CE]

I think the burgers are better than McDonalds/Burger King and the tots are always great. I enjoy the chili and the cherry limeade. D+ is kind of harsh for what they are.

[Ken]

IMO it probably is a "C" something, but she gave it a D because they didn't have the side of coleslaw, like it said on the menu. [It annoys me too when menu items are NOT available, ESPECIALLY at a chain restaurant.]

[Prime8]

Their burgers are pretty good. I agree that their onion rings are disgusting, I too am not that picky. Heck, I've eaten Burger King onion rings more times than I care to admit.

I haven't been there for a while but the 2 times I've been to Madison's Sonic and the 1 time I went to one in Florida, there service was HORRIBLE. It always takes us 10 minutes to order, for some reason, no matter how simple we make it they can't seem to produce the correct order. Once, I ordered a plain hambuger, got a loaded cheeseburger, sent it back, got ANOTHER loaded cheeseburger sent it back and got a plain cheeseburger! Is it really that complicated!? And this happens EVERYTIME.

[ap]

However, apathy of staff works to consumer advantage at times. For example, when you only have a debit card and the machine at your pull-up station isn't working. The lazy teen working just gave us our entire meal for the $1 we had on us.

[Tracy]

Oh come now.

The Mad Rollin' Dolls would make ANY meal better.

I mean, think of it! There you sit at, say, Pedro's, and up come the Mad Rollin' Dolls, who body-check the tortilla machine.

So really, saying they would help at Sonic is cheating. They would help ANYWHERE.

[dac]

Drinks are good, food is below average. below average for a fast food place. Plus, there is a reason almost all the drive ups have closed in Wisconsin. It's only pleasant to eat that way about 12 days a year here.