Sonic Drive-In — Restaurant in Atascadero

I'm not one to leave bad reviews for places. Everyone has off days and I don't want to be a "Karen" but my experience felt worth writing about.

Visited for the first time on 8/11/24. We pulled into the parking space and pressed the button on the screen to order, waited over five minutes, and nobody ever came on the speaker to take our order. After this we decided to try the drive through. I had to yell just for them to be able to hear me. It's a brand new location, you would think their speaker/microphone would work better.

When we pulled up to the window and received our order (I ordered a drink and my friend ordered a sundae), I was only given one straw. I asked politely for a second one for my friend's sundae and the bearded man at the window asked me "for what?" I said it was for my friend's milkshake ( I mistakenly called her sundae a milkshake.) The man then proceeded to argue with me and said "that's not a milkshake, that's a sundae.' SO WHAT! Ice cream melts. We might have wanted to share the drink I got. There are so many reasons why I might want a second straw. I shouldn't have to justify such a small request and he definitely should not have argued with me about it. We're in the Sonic drive-through, not a court of law. It's one straw. It doesn't come out of his paycheck. We should've checked the reviews before going because I now see that we aren't the only ones who have had a bad experience.

In addition to the horrible customer service, our order wasn't even that good. The Twisted Flamingo wasn't mixed all the way. It had a layer of syrup in the bottom. My friend's sundae had all of the ingredients blended into ice cream on top, but the bottom two thirds were just plain soft serve. It wasn't mixed together either. We were extremely disappointed and will not...

Pulling into the drive-thru at Sonic, I was optimistic. All I wanted were three drinks. Simple, right? Spoiler alert: wrong. What should’ve been a quick refreshment stop turned into an accidental audition for a patience marathon.

At the window stood Elijah, our cashier, who I’m convinced time-traveled straight from a 1999 casting call for Dude, Where’s My Car?—complete with the dazed expression, shaggy vibe, and that endearing-but-perplexing “whoa, dude” energy. If Ashton Kutcher and a Slurpee machine had a baby, it might just be Elijah.

He blinked at me like I’d just asked him to explain quantum physics when I reminded him we were just waiting on three drinks. After a lengthy, soul-searching pause, he nodded in slow motion and disappeared into the Sonic abyss, presumably to battle a dragon or maybe just locate some ice.

20 minutes later, our three overpriced, underwhelming beverages emerged—warm-ish, watery, and wildly unsatisfying. One tasted like flat regret, another like it had been whispered to by fruit at some point in its life, and the third may have just been soda with stage fright.

Honestly, if you enjoy a nostalgic detour into the land of stoner comedies and enjoy paying premium prices for mid-tier hydration, this is your spot. Otherwise, bring snacks, a calendar, and maybe a podcast to pass the time. Sonic, I love your commercials—but this performance was definitely more dude, where's my drink?

Oh yeah, happy hour only applies when you use their app...

Was waiting in the drive through, we arrived at 9:15 and there was no other cars behind us and about 7 cars ahead in the drive through line. They just opened up last week so we thought going later in the night towards closing would be best time. The chairs are all up inside, but they didn’t close anything off to get in the drive though or to park and keep in mind they did this plenty of times the nights before cuz we tried this already going late, but we didn’t see it blocked off and then they were turning people away that were trying to come to inside. A guy came out a few minutes later and said the car in front of you is the last car when we were right behind them and followed them into the drive through, we asked why and he ignored us and went back inside. Waited about 10 min in the drive through at this point it’s about 9:35 and there was one car that was ordering through the speaker and they had a car full of people so they said they had another order pulled forward so the people in the back can order their food and ignored them and stop taking orders , when keep in mind this wasn’t the car in front of us that was supposed to be the last car. That car repeatedly said “hello” over and over for about 10 mins so now it’s 9:50. We just laughed and thought it was entertaining, so we just drove through and...