Sonic the hedgehog 30th anniversary 1991 2021 thank you for the memories Shirt
SONIC.With more than thirty-five hundred franchises located in forty-six states in 2020, Sonic is the nation’s eleventh-largest chain of drive-in fast-food restaurants. It is best known for its menu items such as “extra-long cheese coneys” and “toaster sandwiches” as well as freshly made meals and carhop service. The corporation evolved from the Top Hat Drive-In (later Sonic) in Shawnee, Oklahoma, a restaurant founded in 1953 by Troy Smith.After three failed restaurant ventures, Smith opened the Top Hat, an abandoned root beer stand, to serve hamburgers and hot dogs cooked to order. While traveling in Louisiana in 1954, he saw a food stall with homemade intercom speakers that allowed customers to order from their cars. He contacted the innovator who made an intercom for the Top Hat. Smith also added a canopy to shelter diners’ vehicles and hired carhops on roller skates to deliver food directly to the cars. Each customer received a mint with their order, a tradition to remind customers that they were “worth a mint.” Smith had the prototype of the future Sonic.
Sonic the hedgehog 30th anniversary 1991 2021 thank you for the memories Shirt2
In 1956 Charlie Pappe, manager of a Woodward supermarket, partnered with Smith and opened a second Top Hat Drive-In. By 1958, Top Hats existed in Enid and Stillwater. However, only four opened, because the name was already copyrighted to another business. Echoing the jet age, Top Hat’s slogan was “Service with the Speed of Sound,” so the men chose the new name “Sonic.” In 1959 the Stillwater Top Hat became the first Sonic Drive-In. The first franchise agreements offered a royalty fee of one penny per bag, based on the number of sandwich bags sold through its vendor, the Cardinal Paper Company. When Pappe died in 1967, Smith invited two franchisees to operate Sonic Supply, the supply and distribution division. By 1973 the trio built an additional 124 Sonics in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas.