Sonic Drive-In — Restaurant in Layton

I wish the following review was hyperbole. But what follows is a literal timeline of the last hour of my life I won’t ever get back:

We Ordered a small drink and a small shake via the app. We are 10 minutes away and this is the highlight of the trip. It only goes down hill from here.

We arrive and check in.

We wait 10 minutes before my wife says to hit the button.

She says that she just wants to be certain she entered the order correctly.

She’s merely being polite. It was entered correctly.

There’s several younger people hanging out at the tables who clearly are familiar with the workers. One young man has to stop and talk to them every time he comes outside. They spend a good portion of their time conversing each time they are outside. Meanwhile there’s roughly 10 or so cars waiting in stalls and 3-4 in the drive through.

The one young man I mentioned earlier strolls past all the cars tossing his hat in the air in attempts to land it back on his head. It’s a fun game he’s playing in his own little world. No cares we’re given.

Another 10 minutes has passed.

Finally after 25 minutes (not including the 10 minute lead time from our app order) the young hat tosser comes out with the shake and drink.

As he walks towards us he slightly stumbles and momentarily his legs seem to fail him. He looks at us with a look that can only be described as “absent” and walks up to hand us a drink and a strawberry shake that was liquid. Not just a little melted. It was WARM.

So my wife is like “no way. This is melted! You guys took so long it’s not even ice cream anymore”.

With zero expression he takes back the cup and looks completely bewildered. He has no idea how to even react.

A bemused female employee is watching the whole interaction and I can hear her ask “what did he say?” And the kid says “they want a strawberry shake”. Then she walks in a huff to the (mangled!?) garbage bin and throws it away.

I’ll shortcut here to the punchline: he comes back with a new shake. My wife asks for a spoon (this is the second time) and he slurs something that I was able to interpret as “you’re lucky I have a spoon” (Wth?)

But the best part is they remade it and IT WAS ROTTEN. Literally soured milk.

We barely made it to the turn by the dumpster and as my wife was gagging outside the car door I stopped to throw it in the trash.

I look over at the back door and there’s broken down cardboard boxes all over the back lawn by the drive through kiosks.

Now look. Lest you think I’m making too much of this. In the grand scheme of things it’s just a shake. No big deal.

But as a business owner I have to say this whole place is an absolute disaster. Who ever owns this should be utterly embarrassed.

This location is the epitome of the inmates running the asylum.

My wife frequently goes here in the mornings for a drink run with her sister. She’s seen the hat tosser in the daytime. Perfectly normal. No slurred words. No near collapses. The kid was high.

The entire staff is completely MIA. There’s seemingly no one who with an ounce of work ethic or sense of urgency to take care of customers.

The food is awful. The place is in shambles.

What in the world is...

Ordered on their website as I was passing through. I ordered the food followed the steps on the website and pulled into the stall, pushed the red button and gave my name. They said they would work on it 30 min later and no one else in the stalls I pushed the button to ask about my order. At this point the guy on the speaker said “oh no.” They brought out a bag and the four drinks. I mentioned did you forget about us. The kid said no you didn’t do it right you need to check in on the app. I explained I didn’t use the app but didn’t continue a pointless argument. I was confused because I had ordered for four people. I checked the bag and sure enough only one meal had been given. I walked up to the kitchen where I saw staff eating and playing on their phones. When one of them finally looked up from his phone he came out to talk to me. He took my bag of the few items I had back and came out to tell me that they did not have chicken tenders or tater tots I asked if I could have my money back. He said I can get you the General Manager. I also asked well do you have stuff that would be similar to what we ordered. He left got Phillip the general manager. If it wasn’t bad things turned to worse really quick. Phillip came to tell me that he would not give me my money back. I said well you don’t have what I ordered. You brought out food late and have staff hanging out on phones. He didn’t like it I guess cause he said well I can’t help you cause you used the app. I said I used your website not the app. Well you call someone at corporate. I said I ordered it from your store it had me pick your store I am not getting my food or my money that seems unfair. He then got in my face while my back was against the wall and yelled I am trying to help you but I will not give you your money back. At this point feeling threatened because he literally squared up to me I yelled back. He got more in my face so my daughter had to step in and tell him to calm down that it was food and it was $40 worth. He said you two leave or i am calling the cops. No food, no money and threatened I called the police for a case number. Never in my life have I had a food service issue of this sort and if you are a manager de escalation and customer service is key. Never will I be setting foot at this store and if you read this fat don’t order online from them. The manager Phillip has zero customer service skills and what could have easily been resolved through communication and a simple sorry lets work on this made it a horrible experience that I don’t even want to purchase at any Sonic location. If this is what you hire to provide service I am better off...

When I arrived about 7:10pm, the drive-thru line was wrapped around the building, stretching through the parking lot. I parked in a stall, figuring they were busy and the stall would be slower but less chaotic than the drive through.

I pressed the red button that said "activate to start your order".... and waited. And waited. And waited. And after about 10 minutes, it appeared to have timed out or reset, as the "Red button activated. We'll be with you shortly" screen went away, and returned to "hit the red button". So I hit it again, and waited again. And again, it timed out. (Really at this point I should've just left, but man the craving for a nerds slushie was strong.)

So I hit it a 3rd time. While I waited this time, I attempted to make my order through the web-app from my phone. It would not accept my payment information.

So I installed the actual app to attempt to do the same (all the while the screen said "we'll be with you shortly"). The app crashed on my first attempt, failed to accept my payment info on the 2nd attempt (auto-input from my Google pay, so not a user error), and then finally allowed me to order on the 3rd attempt. So I waited, and waited, and waited. After 20 more minutes (about 45 or 50 in total at this point), I approached a couple door dashers sitting on the benches outside. They directed me to the red button on the screen there by the benches. Again, I pushed a red button, again I stared at the "we'll be with you shortly" screen, and again I was not helped. Finally, another 10 minutes later, (I was there for just over an hour!) a worker stepped outside to give the door dashers their orders, and one of them was kind enough to point out to the worker that I'd been waiting for ages. He asked what my order was, and when I gave it to him, he said they had "tried to find me"?!

When I ordered through the app, it made me select the stall I was waiting in. I could see on the screen MY NAME, as I was LOGGED INTO that stall. And yet they "tried to find me"?? By the time I received my order, 4 simple slushies, they were melty. And to add salt to the wound, they FORGOT THE NERDS.

I wasted an hour of my life for a craving that didn't not get fulfilled. And all I got was "sorry". No attempt was made in any way to rectify the terrible service.

From what the door dashers said, Sonic was pretty busy that night. And apparently a GM simply walked out recently. If the service is this bad, and the worker turnover is so high, PAY YOUR PEOPLE BETTER so they stick around and the workers you HAVE aren't stretched so thin they can't complete a...