Sonic Drive-In — Restaurant in Knoxville

You know how usually when a new location opens the service and food are really great for a few months? It is kind of like a honeymoon period for a new restaurant. Usually even chain restaurants have this same period where everything is excellent, the staff is polite and the food is always made correctly. It can even look like the pictures sometimes! Well, this sonic did not have that.

Even on the speaker, the staff acts like they are doing you a favor but are really annoyed they are doing it. No "thank you". No reading back the order. Actually... No listening to your order. They interrupt you right in the middle of a sentence. Don't get me wrong I understand if they need to confirm something with you or maybe if you spoke quietly or in a mumble or incoherently. But by interrupt I mean in the middle of a word.

In addition to these frustrations, the Sonic worker did not read my order back to me or confirm it. This lead to- you guessed it- an incorrect order. Wrong sizes, wrong add-ons, but hey... At least they got the number of items correct.

My final criticism may or may not be the fault of the restaurant itself so I want to be sure that I'm fair about it. It took a very long time sitting in line to get my food. Two cars ahead of me was at the window for an extended period. The reason I say this may not be the restaurants problem is that it is possible the customer could have ordered something really difficult or unusual.

Ultimately though, by the time I did get my food the hot stuff was lukewarm and the cold stuff was melted.

I'm sure I'll return to the restaurant to give it another chance but for such a new location that I was very excited about this is not a very...

I placed an order in the app for the 1st time. When I arrived I was told the grill was down and I need to use the app for a refund. I doubt see the option to request a refund and reached out to customer service. They told me someone would reach out so I am waiting on that.

It has been 4 days and three more attempts to reach out to someone to resolve the issue. Every time I call I'm offered a $5 coupon and nothing more. The menu item that was missing was $7 before tax. Sonic has been unwilling to resolve the issue other than offering me a $5 coupon. They keep telling me they're going to escalate the issue and someone will call me back. I have yet to receive any kind of contact from Sonic. When I look at the reviews it seems like this one in particular on Western avenue has lots of bad reviews so I guess it's not just me.

It's funny that the bot that replied to my original review had a link and a phone number. Clicking on that link just takes you to the Sonic FAQ page and the phone number is just a generic customer service line, which is fine, but those are the people that decided it would be okay to offer a $5 coupon instead of trying to resolve the issue. As I told them I don't want a $5 coupon for something that cost over $7 but they said they was unable do any better and that at someone else would reach out to me once again. That was 4 days ago.

Sonic couldn't care less so why should I? I'll eat the $7 and never go back to Sonic again....

Update * Gave them another try last week thurs/fri and it was even worse THIS time!! Drive through person said "hold please!" Then 10 min later NOTHING !! I drove around after saying HELLO? HELLO? and the poor girl just looked at me like a deer in headlights and said "sorry I'm new!" (WHY was a brand new girl on drive-thru?) Nobody helping her and I said "all I want is a cone please" (I swear I'd not of come again but my grandson loves their vanilla!) She said "oh we don't have any!" I'm like wth? Any what? Ice cream, cones... EMPLOYEES?20 minutes for all that!!

Don't go here just go on over to Bearden area or something because it will take the same amount of time! Smdh!!

These folks don't want to be there and it shows! I figured since it was NEW the people would be too, no the vibe is "what do you want?" "Hurry and tell us!" ...Also "don't care you had to wait 20 minutes and here is your sad, melting ice cream in 35° weather(because they made it WHEN you ordered 5 people back) and practically throw your change at your window! Idk about the staff at the stalls but drive-thru is just a thrill!

Disclaimer: I know that there is a problem with hiring these days but it really didn't help I saw at LEAST 4 staff members outside talking,smoking and rallied around what I assume was the ONLY off duty member of the group that pulled up blasting his "stereo" while I'm waiting at least 20 minutes for an...