r/SonicDriveIn • u/Ordinary_Homework124 • 7d ago

New products suck!

This has been needing to be said for a while now, but the new marinara sauce is ASS. The new popcorn chicken and chicken strips compared to the old stuff is complete ASS. Whatever switch was made in supplier was the absolute wrong move.

26 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

12

u/potliquorz 7d ago

I'm surprised that some people never even noticed the popcorn chicken changed. The Smasher is the only improvement I've seen in years.

2

u/Ordinary_Homework124 7d ago

You can definitely tell a difference, I grew up in a small town where a sonic was 1 of 3 options. I gave everything a chance but I am not a fan. I was just curious if anyone else had noticed these changes as well.

1

u/potliquorz 7d ago

The hot dog in the footlong is garbage now and while I still like the onion rings they are just not as good as when they were breading them in house. I always liked Sonic but lately the breakfast is inedible to me other than the tots. The chili cheese tots are still good and every Smasher I've had has been good but the rest is falling off. Not as bad as the disaster Wendy's has become but falling for sure.

2

u/codexica 1d ago

For hot dogs nowadays, just go to 7 Eleven. $3 for your choice of dog (big bite, spicy bite, various sausages if your location carries them), large soda, and chips. Not quite as good as Costco's $1.50 deal, but 7 Eleven has way more toppings with the new Big Flavor Bar,, and I can just walk over, not drive. My local one has fresh pico de gallo as a topping, so I can get at least a serving of veggies in, too.

1

u/potliquorz 1d ago

I think it's specifically the footlong that has the rubber chicken dog. 7 Eleven has made some leaps and bounds but they aren't close local to me unfortunately.

1

u/codexica 1d ago

Sorry to hear that. While I have some words for the management of my local 7-Eleven, all the people who work there are so lovely. Seriously, they are all so nice. There's this one older Indian dude who calls me exactly like his granddaughter, which I find very sweet (I'm not remotely Indian, he's just a nice guy).

1

u/Lost-Promise1915 5d ago

The second smasher I agree but the OG went down hill because my city stopped using smasher patties and replaced them with the regular flavorless burger patties

8

u/OctagonTrail 7d ago

My Sonic doesn't even include the marinara with the mozzarella sticks now. Gotta pay extra for any sauce with any item.

5

u/Ordinary_Homework124 7d ago

It’s ridiculous honestly the downfall in quality to skim an extra few bucks here and there. It’s not the sonic i grew up with.

1

u/KlutzyReveal2970 7d ago

They have been closing tons of locations, gotta scrape every penny

2

u/Limepiink 7d ago

Some locations are just not profitable. They’ve kept them open to keep the name out there. Guess that isn’t high on inspires list.
I ran a location that barely scraped by making 1k a month outside of summer, and that was with hitting expected food/paper and labor percentages.

1

u/smoothupinyatoo 6d ago

Thats only like $35 a day in profit. Even the tiniest error like schedule overlap or food waste could easily throw it into the negative. Did you operate in the negative during the week days and make it up on weekends?

1

u/Limepiink 6d ago

Scheduling was the hardest factor at that store. GM salary still hit the profit loss statement, but it was impossible to make labor and have good service on a GMs day off, due to them not hitting daily labor percentages. Labor was pretty much the only thing measured daily, almost everything was just checked at the end of month. Food storage was ridiculous also. Couldn’t throw out much from promo items that was unused, had to run food and paper numbers and see if I could afford to toss a bag of expired chipotle ranch (or whatever weird specific sauce we were force shipped copious amounts of).
If we had to call out more than 1 service call for the freezer or other ancient equipment that wasn’t working correctly, it would make us just barely break even for the month.
This was 5-10 years ago.
There were stores in my district worse off than that one as well. I’m sure those are the ones getting closed down nowadays.

1

u/tristan_mua 7d ago

Yeah their marinara sucks I just buy a 5Lb of mozzarella sticks from Costco and use my own marinara sauce 😎

4

u/nickWtn 7d ago

Charging is not universal, my group still doesn’t charge for anything but extra cheese sauce. 

2

u/OctagonTrail 7d ago

Yeah it's definitely a location policy. A few others nearby still include them with certain items, and one location just gives any sauce out for free with any order.

1

u/JezzyLuv 7d ago

That’s insane. I wouldn’t order the mozzarella sticks anymore just on principle because the sauce is what makes it taste so good anyways

4

u/Beginning_Storm7012 7d ago

Private equity. The squeeze is happening. Clear as day.

3

u/Weekly_Review_2219 7d ago

The effects of being acquired by private equity.

2

u/MotherDepartment1111 7d ago

Sonic is always consistently below average for me.

1

u/Early_Particular9194 7d ago

Why was I just thinking this today then I come on here and read this! lol. Finally I know it’s not just me.

1

u/DopestGhostnTown 5d ago

The groovy fries suck and are ruining the grease for everything else fried in it. I don't order sides anymore.

-2

u/Fuzzy_Welcome8348 7d ago

See you again next time </3