25/06/2024
Good read Kevin Brimage
Sonic Drive-In was founded on June 18. 1953 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. What is your favorite item on Sonic's menu?
Following World War II, Sonic founder Troy N. Smith Sr. returned to his hometown of Seminole, Oklahoma, Soon afterwards, Smith purchased the Cottage Cafe, a little diner in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Before long, he sold it and opened a fast food restaurant, Troy's Pan Full of Chicken, on the edge of town.
In 1953, Smith joined with a business partner to purchase a five-acre parcel of land that had a log house and a walk-up root beer stand named the Top Hat. The two continued operating the root beer stand and converted the log house into a steak restaurant. After realizing that the stand was averaging $700 a week in the sale of root beer, hamburgers, and hot dogs, Smith decided to focus on the more-profitable root beer stand and bought out his business partner.
Originally, Top Hat customers parked their automobiles anywhere on the gravel parking lot and walk up to place orders. 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.
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.
Upon learning that the Top Hat name was already trademarked, Smith and Pappe changed the name to Sonic in 1959. The new name worked with their existing slogan, "Service with the Speed of Sound". After the name change, the first Sonic sign was installed at the Stillwater Top-Hat 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.
Today, there are 3,551 Sonic restaurants located in 46 U.S. states.
View the Oklahoma collection at American Retro Apparel: https://americanretroapparel.com/collections/oklahoma
