Sonic Drive-In — Restaurant in Austin

I’ve come to this Sonic location many times before and usually have great experiences- the young girls who work here are always very sweet and helpful. Unfortunately, my visit recently was very disappointing.

My friend and I ordered drinks and a meal in the evening. The meal was fine, but the drinks were not: the sweet tea was extremely watery with no sweetness, and the dirty cherry Coke was barely “dirty” (not creamy at all). Since we were still nearby, we stopped back to politely let them know and hoped to have the drinks corrected.

The girl that helped us wasn’t sure how to handle it, so she called the manager. From the start, the manager treated us with visible attitude, as if we were a burden for bringing this up. When we handed back the drinks, she snatched them from us without a word and walked away. It then took about 10 minutes to remake the drinks. While waiting, I noticed the manager toss our returned drinks across the room- sending them literally flying into the sink or trash- and then begin yelling, (hopefully not at the workers) which felt extremely unprofessional.

When the drinks were finally brought out, we chose to replace the sweet tea with a strawberry slushy because we weren’t confident the tea would be remade correctly. Instead of refunding or adjusting the price, we were charged the difference, which felt unfair given the circumstances. The slushy itself was good, but the dirty cherry Coke was SO overly creamed that it had no Coke flavor or fizz at all.

This is not the first issue I’ve experienced at this location. On a prior visit, my card showed on the screen outside that the payment had gone through successfully, but when the food was brought out, the staff insisted it hadn’t gone through on their system. I checked my banking app right away, and sure enough, the payment had already processed. This is just another example of how both the system and some of the management/staff here are really lacking.

Overall, the customer service from the manager was unacceptable. The initial drinks were poorly made, the replacements were also unsatisfactory, and the way the situation was handled left us feeling disrespected. I’ve had good experiences here before, but based on today and what I’ve since read in other reviews, it seems this location is...

Literally do not believe ANY of the positive reviews. They're more than likely friends of employees or employees themselves at one point.

This place is easily overwhelmed. They'll just stop taking orders when they're busy instead of pushing through rushes. I'd like to blame it on volume of orders, but I can't. I've been here when they aren't busy and it's still hit and miss on whether they'll even take your order . I only know one thing that'll work. Management has to step it up here big time and hold their employees accountable for this Sonic being the worst I've ever been to, and I worked at Sonic for 5 years.

Alright so, the owner responded yesterday or about 15 hours ago. So I went back 2 days later to see improvement. The only different thing they did is ask if you wanted ketchup at the car... Ordered a breakfast toaster with bacon and asked them to add mayo. They did not. I also asked for ranch with my jalapeno poppers I got none. I asked for easy ice in my rout 44 vanilla root beer I got extra ice. Guys, I'm really not trying to put anyone down, really. But this is an entry level fast food job. If you can't get something right that literally has the instructions in front of you, I honestly don't know where you are planning on going in life. You have to at least try to do things right though. Please, please do something about this. It'll start with one person refusing to go to your store, then that number goes from 1 to 100 real fast if improvements aren't made. Simple fixes. Read the screen, follow instruction on screen, don't bump order off until it's completed. That way they aren't relying on memory to make the order.

That, or just shut it down before someone gets sick...

I went here around 4pm 07/04/24. All I order was a slush. I ordered and checked in through the app. It told me it was expected to come out at 4:24. At 4:45 I stopped one of the workers if asked about it. I wasn’t rude or aggressive or anything. She said she would check on it. The manager came out and asked what I had so I had showed her and then she we went back in and got it and then brought it out. But for some reason she was trying to blame it on me that it didn’t come out for 20 minutes. She said I ordered it wrong and I told her I ordered through the app and checked in and out the stall number like I do every time. She told me I didn’t do that way and then I showed her the app saying the time expected to deliver was 4:24. She then told me I could get out of my car and come in so I could see on her screen that’s not what it said. I didn’t do that because I didn’t care honestly. I just wanted my slush. I don’t know why she was making it such a point to say it was all my fault. I’ve been in the service industry for 15 years and rule number one is customer is always right. Even if they are wrong you fix the issue and apologize. I could get it if I was causing a scene or getting upset but I was ready to just get my slush and go but she kept trying to make sure I know it was my fault...