Sonic Drive-In — Restaurant in Oak Ridge

Without a doubt, the worst experience I have ever had with a fast food restaurant was today. I went through the drive-thru on my lunch break and ordered a side item and two drinks. When I got to the window, the gentleman was quick to take my payment, but after that, I was left staring at the window for over 15 minutes while the employees goofed off and had their social hour. My bag was sitting right in front of me the entire time. All they had to do was hand it to me. There were at least 4 employees laughing and chatting and doing absolutely nothing. Not a one of them could hand me my bag so I could just leave. I tried getting their attention and was completely ignored. Eventually, I was running late to get back to work, and was forced to just drive away with nothing, even though I had already paid. When I returned to work, I tried calling the store. Big mistake. On my first attempt, the phone just rang and rang and nobody ever answered. A little while later, I tried again. It rang for quite a while, and then someone finally answered. I asked to speak to a manager, and the woman on the line asked who I was. I told her “I’m the guy that drive off a while ago because nobody would hand me my bag.” I was perfectly polite but clearly annoyed. I then heard the girl tell her manager “someone wants to talk to you and he’s super mad”. I didn’t appreciate that, nor did I appreciate the “manager” immediately putting the phone on mute and leaving me in silence for several minutes until I had to hang up.

I have never been treated this way at a restaurant in my life. I will be demanding a full refund and reporting this incident to the store owner. The children that run this establishment clearly don’t need your business, so I wouldn’t bother giving it to them...

I went to the Oak Ridge, TN Sonic today right before 5 pm. I pressed the button and after about 3 minutes, someone answered. I began to place my order when I was stopped after the first item. I was told that the ice cream machine was not working. Ok, I will just order the rest of the items I want. I proceed to tell the woman my order and after the second item, she tells me to hold on. Ok.....about 2 minutes later, some other woman gets on and asks if she can start my order. I let her know that someone had already started taking my order. She seems annoyed by my response and she told me the other girl had to take out and order and she had to get her headphones. Ok, whatever. After my order was placed, I sat in my car waiting for THIRTY minutes. My daughter and I became annoyed, and started looking towards the inside of the restaurant. We saw people working and people walking around drinking drinks and chatting with each other. The screen indicated that someone was bringing out our food. Nope. Some guy walked out with an order that obviously was not mine and he looked around all confused just to go back inside. My daughter got out of the car to go to the door to see if someone could give us an update (I tried pushing the button to ask for an update but no one ever answered. Finally, a young girl came out and told my daughter that she was new and thought things weren't right. She told me daughter that the ice cream machine WAS working and didn't know why they told us it was not. After at LEAST 45 minutes, we finally got our food. It wasn't even a large order. A Smasher burger, cheese sticks...

It shouldnt take over 20 minutes to get a small shake and small blast out to a stall when there is hardly 2 people in the drive through. Seems like they just completely neglect the stall parked people. After I finally asked about my order they said they had "lost the ticket" I would have sat in this spot for hours if I didnt say anything. Then on top of that the stuff I ordered and paid for and had waited over 20 minutes for was incorrect because they apparently didnt have M&Ms and the "peanut butter shake" tasted nothing like peanut butter at all it was basically a vanilla milk shake with some tiny scrape of peanut butter resting at the very bottom like it wasnt mixed at all. Terrible experience and terrible service. In the end I got the ole "tell them _ sent you to get that remade for you at your earliest convenience". Edit: I changed my review to a 3/5 because the general manager reached out and made the situation right. I am still in disbelief by how poor the response was from the company itself but at least the general manager is more customer friendly about handling situations. I went back and got my order remade and it was 100 times better than my first experience was. Still leaves a bad taste in your mouth for sonic becuase the experience was that bad at first but at least they acknowledged and fixed...