Fine Dining - SONIC Drive-In: Full History and Honest Review

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

🍒 Sonic Drive-In: Full History and Honest Review 🛻 This week, SONIC Drive-In gets the full treatment: history and review, all in one. From the retrofuturistic drive-in vibes and “Two Guys” commercials to a dashboard covered in onion rings, we dive deep into everything SONIC does right, wrong, and in-between. Special guest Marc Pope (Geek Off the Street podcast) joins me for cherry limeades, corndogs, and a Septemburger showdown to see if SONIC can topple Dairy Queen. 🍟 Tater Tots & Onion Rings: Fried Side-by-Side Taste Test 🌭 Corn Dog has a Weird Wiener 🍒 Cherry Limeade & Ocean Water = Still the MVPs 🍦 Oreo & Reese’s Sonic Blasts Bring the Sugar Rush 🍔 Burgers on Trial: Double Sonic Smasher, Garlic Butter Bacon Burger, Bacon Sonic Stack 🗣️ Intercom Girl Steps on My Words 📋 Passenger Seat Menu Visibility = Zero Stars 🚗 No Food Trough??  DO BETTER, SONIC!! ⛸️ No Roller Skates = The Ultimate SONIC Fail ⚔️ Septemburger Matchup: Double SONIC Smasher vs. DQ Bacon Deluxe You can still fill out your Septemburger bracket! Update it after hearing who won between SONIC and Dairy Queen! 💬 COMMENT BELOW: What’s your Sonic go-to order? 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🎉 Patreon (Bonus episodes, full Yelp segments & more): patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Food talk, memes, cursed Yelp): discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes: youtube.com/@finediningpodcast 🔗 All links: linktree.com/finediningpodcast 🎤 Follow Marc Pope’s podcast: @TheGOTSPod Patreon Producers: Sue Ornelas & Joyce Van 👉 NEXT WEEK: We cover Jack in the Box, the #8 seed in the Septemburger tournament, with special guest Honey the puppet from Ragmop & Goose!

Sonic Drive-In. If you've ever craved tater tots, frozen treats, corn dogs, and burgers, but didn't want to leave your car, Sonic is the place for you. A paragon of retrofuturism, Sonic is where you go to suppress the intrusive thoughts that impel you to shove a roller skating teenager off balance. But is it any good? We went to Sonic today, and there were positives and negatives. The cherry limeate is worth every bit of the hype it gets, but eating this much food in my car

is a special kind of hell to me. The Sonic Oreo Blast was a heavenly treat. Seeing the menu from the passenger side? Impossible. The Tater Tots were so good, I'd eat an actual infinity of them, but the burger offerings didn't exactly allow me to have a supersonic day. This week on the show, Septemberger rolls on.

Sonic's burger will go head-to-head with Dairy Queen's Burger later in the episode, but first, all scratchy intercom my expertise, directly into your rolled-down window of curiosity so that you two may know everything I've learned about Sonic Drive-in. Then we'll tell you beautiful viewers what we and the people of Yelp think about the Sonic we went to today. Stay tuned, this is the Fine Dining Podcast. Eight burgers and tie, one burger leaves, take a look at the mena, nothing for beefs, so fire up that grill and fry up your soul. We're looking for something that's better than mediocre.

It's time for a burger in September. Yes, it's time for the test. There can only one victory September. Yeah, we're looking for some perfection on a bun. Just be the best burger that you can be. Somewhere between heaven and ecstasy. I can see that hunger it's in your life. You're going for glory with the sight of fright.

Hey, everyone, before we jump properly into this week's episode, I want to tell you about another podcast that you're going to like if you like this one. It's called Candy is Dandy. Candy is Dandy is the world's only podcast devoted entirely to reviewing candy. Hosted by Greg Gonzalez, Beto Sistos, and Daniel Zafron, three longtime best friends and comedians and candy obsessives. Each episode, they pick a different candy, give its history, and then taste, and review it on air with All the mouth sounds mercifully edited out. Each episode then ends with a candy-related game. They have done an episode on Snickers and found out it was named after a horse.

They discovered the connection Butterfingers have to the atomic bomb. They tasted way too many peach rings with Comedy Bang Bang and SNL's Carl Tart. If you love candy, you're going to love this show. They cover all the candies you love. from your childhood and more. Find Candy is Dandy, the Candy Review Podcast, anywhere. Podcasts are found. So you're really thinking about pushing over a teenager?

Like, I, my conscience knows not to. But I recognize the opportunity. It's the call of the void when, like, you're standing over a cliff and you're like, I could jump. You don't want to, but you entertain the thought. Okay. That's very natural, very human. I accept that. It's a thing, you know.

Hello, and welcome to the Fine Dining Podcast, the quest to compare all restaurants to Chili's. I am your host, Michael Ornellis, and it's September. My annual hamburger tournament pitting eight burger chains against one another until a winner emerges at the end of the month. There's still time to fill out a bracket. Just click the link in the description of this episode or go to fine diningpodcast.com. The winner will get bragging rights, a rap song. written about them or anything they choose, and they can choose any American chain restaurant I've yet to cover, and I'll do an episode on it.

This week on the show, we will be reviewing Sonic Drive-In, the easiest chain to cosplay its mascots, as they are just two guys sitting in a car. And joining me this week to discuss this brand is coming to us from the Geek Off the Street podcast, a show that talks all things geek and pop culture. It's Mark Pope. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Pleasure to be here, man.

Yes, sir. Thank you for the invite. How are you doing? Ah, man, living the dream. This was a long time coming. You know, I'm a big fan of the show. I'm telling my friends all about it. So I was looking forward to being here. Hell yeah. And I was a big fan of doing your show. It was such a delight chatting with you and Trent. Shout out to Trent. Hello. How's it going. What to do. I remember talking about wanting to be a gore on that will. You got to watch the episode, everybody. I will eat and review how rocks taste. Well, so we went to Sonic today. Yeah. Do you have a personal background with Sonic? You know what? The very first time I ever went to or heard about a Sonic, my sister actually told me about it. And she went to college out in Texas. Okay.

So I didn't know anything about Sonic. And it wasn't out here in California yet at the time. So I'm a little bit older than I pretend to be. So this was probably back in the, sometime in the 90s maybe, mid-90s. Okay. Okay. So a long time, Miguel. And there was no Sonic out here. But when one did show up, she was going on and on about like that cherry lime aid and all that kind of stuff.

So I said, all right, let me go check these guys out. And for a while when they opened up in Riverside, I was going on a somewhat regular basis. Sure. Just to get the drinks. They entered the rotation. They did. They did. It's interesting.

As I've done more and more restaurants for this show, my rotation has gotten smaller and smaller. Oh, interesting. Which I find, yeah, I think I've also had like a few places that I used to love. And now that I've gone to more places, I'm like, oh, maybe they're not as great as I thought they were. Right, right. And then there's places that I, like, don't shut up about. And, yeah, it's nice to get variety. And Sonic is never, there's just not one close enough to me.

We went to the closest one of me and it's like 33 miles away or something like that. When I was driving from there to here, I was like, there's no Sonic, like anywhere in between here. That's nuts. No. So that's crazy. Yeah. And then I remember. Sonic opened up not a drive-in, like literally a walk-in restaurant version of Sonic in a strip

mall that was near where I went to middle school when I grew up in Texas. Yeah, yeah. So that was my first exposure to Sonic was like, oh, tater tots are the thing. Oh, hot dogs are more the thing. Because like, yeah, they are a fast food burger place, but kind of the rest of their menu is the draw. Yeah. So that's your history with Sonic. That's my history.

Do you want to hear the history? Oh, we'd love to. All right. We're going to jump into this week's Eat Deets. Eat Deets. Eatery details. Sonic Drive-in started in 1953 as Top Hat, a small root beer stand in Shawnee, Oklahoma, founded by Troy Smith. He introduced curbside speakers and car hop service, allowing customers to order from

their cars, which quickly boosted sales. This innovative concept laid the foundation for Sonic's unique car-centric culture. I like seeing like them come in on the roller skates. Like it reminds me like that old school vibe from like the 50s. I think the car hop thing is kind of a, a relic from a bygone era. Right. That is, you know, Johnny Rockets used to do it. Sonic used to do it. We thought they were going to be doing it today. We'll get into that more later. But it is, there is a charm to it.

It's kind of fun. It's also hazardous. Yeah, skating in between cars, yeah, that are going to be, yeah, driving in, pulling up, pulling out. Yeah, it could be a little dangerous. But again, man, I grew up, this is just me. I grew up watching a lot of those old movies, like from the 30s up until, like the 50s, 60s, like, I'm all about that. So seeing that just kind of brings a piece of the past to life for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm all about it. Yeah. In 1956, Smith partnered with Charlie Pepe to franchise the concept, and by 1959, they rebranded as Sonic, a play on Top Hat's slogan, service with the speed of sound. Not service at the speed of sound, but with because of the intercoms. That's, I, uh, so there's a few little puns in there. little bit of wordplay. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess like, I don't know, Sonic, that was a big thing in the 50s, like breaking the sound barrier and all that kind of stuff. I'm just being a big nerd. We were trying to push humans further than they were physically capable. And now we're like dialing it back a little bit. Like maybe we did too much. Maybe inventing microplastics wasn't great. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I'm looking at the microplastics. We're, uh, we need them, man. I make my skin look so smooth. I'm exfoliating all the time.

They created a new franchising model, including a penny surcharge on each hamburger bag as a royalty fee. This move set the stage for rapid growth in Oklahoma and neighboring states. So they were taxing people? One cent per bag, per hamburger bag. And it was specifically a royalty to the founders. Oh, ooh, man, I don't know how I feel about that. That feels a little crappy to me. It's not even nickel and diming.

It's penny. Yeah, penny and dining us. Because it's just a penny. Who's going to argue? It's just a penny. Just give us a penny. This is like office space where they're like, we're going to steal fractions of a penny. He's going to notice.

He's going to care. Yeah. And they got away with it. Wow. Sonic. Just a penny. But it's also a penny by 1959 standards, which is like a dollar and 14 cents. It's like a week's allowance.

Back then. Heck yeah. Yeah. Buy a bicycle with that. Throughout the 1960s, Sonic expanded across small towns in the American. American Heartland, forming a supply division to support the new locations. By 1967, the chain had 41 drive-ins, and by 1972, this number quadrupled. Sonic's parking stalls, intercom ordering, and car hops delivering meals became a familiar

site in the southwest, cementing its reputation as America's driving. You know what? I really wonder, while I was expanding that much, why, what took them so long to get out to California? I know there's like a few restaurants that are like their southern or southwest restaurants. They just don't make the transition. Yeah. And like Oklahoma, a lot of people think Sonic is a Midwestern chain. It's from Oklahoma.

That's not the Midwest. That is considered technically the Southwest, much like Texas. Okay. So it's like it's pushing the, it's kind of bridging the gap between the two. Right. But given that it is in the Southwestern region, it also surprises me that Sonic didn't get out here as quickly. Yeah. But it's also, if you look on their website and sort by, like, locations, between Texas and Oklahoma, they have, like, almost 2,000 locations alone.

Texas has, like, 960 Sonics in it. Wow. Which is, like, almost the entire footprint nationally of Chili's. Chili's is at, like, 1,200. Oh, geez. Yeah. Wow, good for Sonic then. Isn't that great?

That's so wild. Still not enough, I say. Keep going. Keep going. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, we'll get into it later.

Yeah. The 1970s saw Sonic expand beyond 1,000 locations by 1978. They introduced quirky items like deep fried pickle o's to stand out next to their hot dogs and burgers. The company also started offering more support to franchisees, including launching Sonic School in 1977 to train their managers. Sorry, when you said Sonic School, I started laughing. But, okay, management training school. Okay. I should have waited. I should have waited for the rest of it. I thought a Sonic school. Like a trade school. Exactly. Yeah. Like little kids are going there and learning the, yeah.

Learning how to break the soundberry. On their skates. We're going to be the first person to launch a sixth grader into space. It's going to be, yes, just you wait and see like a cult kind of thing. Yeah. Good for Sonic. Yeah, a Sonic commune. Yeah. I might consider it. Are you that susceptible? I'm easy. And I'm cheap. My brain is for rent. So, come on down. Come on down.

In the 1980s, Sonic hired new executives and began a national ad campaign with 1950s teen idol Frankie Avalon, establishing its identity as a nostalgia forward brand. Well, that's cool to hear Frankie Avalon. Yeah, I know that name. I know that guy. I don't, but I am not of the 50s. Yes, and I am of the age of 50s. So, yes, Frankie Avalon. was a big actor in the uh maybe the 60s or 50s and 60s I suppose he was like a teen heartthrob

yeah he was probably one of the most popular ones in America when he was at his at his zenith yeah so wow I was like the Zach aphron of his time yes that something for the kids to understand yes put it just at their level yes I don't know like I don't know who my male teen heartthrobs were when I was a teen like I know Jonathan Taylor Thomas was like Okay yeah yeah But he was he a heartthrob I don't know he was like a teen

I think he was Yeah yeah yeah I'm trying to think who was Man I was of the Saved by the Bell Okay era so Mark Gossler Whatever that guy's name is Mark Paul Gossler

Yes yeah yeah him and Slater I don't know where his name is Mario Lopez Oh okay yeah yeah yeah Yeah, so those guys were the cool ones. I think Duran Duran, the band people, were they hot? Is Duran Duran known for being hot? They were a lot of the girls.

Breaking news. Again, this was many moons ago, but I think, speaking of moons, I think hungry like the wolf is a very overrated song. I don't, like, lyrically, I don't enjoy it as far as the sound of it goes. I don't like it. Yeah, yeah. That was one of their hits, too. I was pretty anti Duran Duran Duran. Just because I was like, you know, oh, they're not cool.

I was a tough, that right there. I was a tough boy. Arms folded. Exactly. I'm not feeling Duran Duran. But I feel like I. Who were you into? When I was a kid, Michael Jackson and Prince were, you know, very big at the time.

I can't argue with those. Yeah. I was hoping it'd be something much more cringe. Oh, you know what? I really wasn't that. I think I was pretty pedestrian, I think, as a kid. You know, I consider myself like a smart and free thinker kind of. of thing but I was into that you know a lot of the basic pop stuff uh rap music was yes I said

the rap music was new yeah yeah when I was a kid so I like rappers delight yeah that was a little bit before my time but um having like run DMC uh you know a lot of those artists from back in the early 80s were you know cool thing that you know break dancing was brand new it was it was a great time to be a kid people were like you can spin on your head Watch this. Ow. Sonic was bought out for $10 million in 1986, and by 1991, the company returned to the stock market, fueling further expansion. $10 million?

That's all it took. Wow. We could have bought that. Yeah. You and I could have pulled together our millions. That seems like a super low number, even in that time. Yeah. Right?

I mean, doesn't seem... Because they were over a thousand locations at that point. Yeah. That seems super odd. Yeah. It's like 100, what, 100,000 per location? Yeah, I wonder if they were like maybe some of their locations were closing down or maybe they were also sort of downward spiral.

I don't know. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. During the 1990s, Sonic expanded aggressively and modernized its look and operations. The chain opened 100 plus new drive-ins annually in the mid-90s and undertook a system wide retrofit called Sonic 2000 to update restaurants with a retro futuristic Jetson style design. The brand also standardized its menu across franchises, ensuring a consistent identity. I will admit, I do like that retro future, whatever.

I do too. Yeah, I thought that's cool. I'm really curious what they were before. I just assume they were like this and they just kept it going. You know what I mean? It was, I don't think it was like super far off. I don't think it was super different. I didn't honestly look up older pictures

which maybe I'm a bad podcaster and researcher for not doing that but yeah I just didn't think to as far as I remember Sonic they've always kind of looked like this and then given that they came from that era and had the car hops and stuff I assume that they had that

classic look it may have been just classic classic classic not classic future because like that vision of the future thing but like even then You're naming yourself Sonic, like Supersonic Speed of Sound. It feels like it's always been right there to do that. I like that, though. I like that.

I like the look they got going on now. Run with that, guys. Run with it. In the 2000s, Sonic hit the national stage with its two guys TV ads, featuring a duo of jokey improvisational actors in a car and made a pop culture impact when the reality show, The Simple Life, aired an episode. in which Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie donned the Sonic uniforms and worked as car hops.

By the end of the 2000s, Sonic had thousands of locations nationwide. I completely forgot about those commercials, but those were actually fun commercials. Those were actually... They were, I remember, I couldn't tell you a single joke that I, like, that sticks with me off of it, but it was just, it was vibes. Yeah. And off the vibes, I was into it. Right. Yeah, like you said, they were just in the car, sitting there just, you know, eating food, trying different drinks or whatever,

just having a good time. And it felt like a kind of the relatable way people, like the types of conversations, people who are just kind of in their car, joking around, making dumb jokes would do. Yeah. And what I also really liked is the contrast that it had

with the landscape of marketing at the time. I feel like a lot of advertisers were going really big, a lot of celebrity endorsements or spokespersons or whatever. not this two guys in a car at a restaurant that you know i'm sure they were actually at a sonic so it's pretty easy to to do it yeah and that 100% worked right because yeah it made it fun i think that was one of the the clever things that i noticed about um macdonald's commercials um i can't remember i remember being a kid watching one one day and they never mentioned a hamburger in this commercial at all like never it was but i thought wow this is the most this like very sweet very

endearing, you know, it's like Ronald McDonald trying to help some kid, you know, is going to run away from home, and he talks her out of it. And then pushes her down because she's rollerblading. Sonic, son. Yeah, right? He ran off. Ronald McDonald can't suppress the intrusive thoughts

either. It's very natural. Yeah. But, yeah, it was just sentimental. Yeah, exactly. And then these sonic commercials, yeah, they were, it kind of had the same vibe. just, you know, having a good time, just something you would enjoy. But at the same time, they were showing these drinks and everything that looked, you know, really good.

So yeah, yeah, that was, I completely forgot about those sonic commercials. And those were actually good commercials. And they ran for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The last one was like 2020. Shut up. Yeah. Okay.

It's my show and everybody. You do the show. Wow. Yeah, I didn't realize they were even still doing them. I haven't, I haven't seen a Sonic commercial. I don't know how long, so. Yeah. Let's put our money together.

Let's buy Sonic. It's only $10 million, even by today's standards, I'm sure. Let's do it. 40 years after their $10 million buyout, nothing's changed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure they'll take it. After 65 years of independent operation, Sonic was acquired by Inspire Brands for $2.3 billion at the end of 2018.

The acquisition integrated Sonic into a larger family of restaurant brands, including Baskin Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Arby's, Jimmy Johns, and Duncan. But it has continued to operate as America's Drive-In, which is to say that even under Inspire, there are zero sonic locations outside of the United States. Oh. Hmm. Why? I feel like you could, well, maybe not Arby's. They're probably not outside of the United States, right? Who would want them?

Who would want them? I haven't covered Arby's for a reason. I was just about to say. I don't have a lot of good thoughts about Arby's. I will say I do not go to Arby's that often. This show's not about Arby's everybody, but their Jamoka shake, fantastic. If you're into, if you like the coffee, if you're into the chocolate flavors, it's spot on, man. I highly recommend it.

You're all nope. I'm still not going. Look, here's the thing. I love meat. I'm a Texan. I love Texas barbecue. But yet this place comes along and it tries to take ownership over having the meats. And I think that's audacious.

Oh, I see. And then you go. And then the quality of meat is just like this. This is the meats to you. I reject this notion. Okay. That's how I feel about artists. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's more of a personal affront to you than anything else. Yeah. All right. I respect your principles, sir. So. I remember it's like my, uh,

oldest goddaughter there once when she was much younger she's you know an adult now but um i took her there and they never you know she'd never been before and i said oh we got to go to arbys they got all the meats and she'll do they got pastrami and i was like oh jeez this little punk which they don't have so they have i need a second guess one they have the meat they have the meats not all the meat yeah we got some we harbys we got some meats we got some meats man that just sounds like they keep it like a like an open garbage bag in the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like a cabinet. They open up. It's not refrigerated. Just lose meat. They start looking around, moving things. Oh, here's some meat. Slap on a bun. That is the vibe that I think of. Okay. But the

Jamaica shake, I highly recommend. All right. Sonic saw a resurgence in the 2020s, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as customers appreciated the safety of drive-in dining. The company updated its designs and menu to keep up with trends. Despite a slight dip in sales in 24, Sonic's cultural impact remained strong as it adapts to contemporary tastes. You know what? I don't even think I went to Sonic during COVID, but that completely makes sense. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's a, yeah, man, the world. If there was a closer one, honestly, I probably would have ended up there. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised. Uh, because I was doing, I mean, I was doing so much like, uh, postmates, Uber Eats, like stuff like

that. Sure, right. So unreasonably expensive. Yeah. Yeah. It was just dumb. Like that. People are like, here's what my stimulus checks got me. Literally, it just got my food delivered. That's all it was. And I wish I would have had like a Sonic or something like a drive-in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To go save some money and still get, you know, get some delicious food. I'm glad somebody capitalized from that pandemic without, without nefarious motives behind it.

I was, I was about to say. Yeah, where are you going with this? Is like, are you pro billionaire? Yes, without any sort of. Are you not telling me something? You're the one who's like, hey, you want to go 50-50 on buying the sonic name? I'm not kidding. Let's do it.

No, I'm legitimately glad that there was someone that was able to, you know, like turn a profit. Exactly, exactly. You know, there was a silver lining on that, you know, that dark. cloud. Yeah, that's over everybody. And a lot of the chains that ended up doing well were the most adaptable ones, the ones that were like, okay, look, people aren't going to be eating here. That's just factual. So what can we do to get people their food creatively or maybe change our menu offerings for a limited time to adapt? Yeah. Yeah, it was a very challenging but unique time to watch the restaurant landscape because ones that failed at a point, I'm,

I'm almost like, well, what did you expect? Did you think this was going to end sooner? Yeah. Like, I don't know. There were just some places that I think refused to change. And, uh, and I'm more talking about like mom and pop local places because that's what I kept an eye on. I was always worried that my favorite places were going to shut down.

Because like, my show is about chain restaurants, but my in real life eating habits. Yeah. I love local places. That's cool. I really do. And, uh, like, a week not even kidding a week into the pandemic my favorite diner shut down oh geez they gave up so before loans were even announced before anything they were just like well this is it like nobody

knew what was going on at the time no one knew it was like third week of march 2020 wow they're like closed right we see the writing on the walls we're out harry's diner on san fernando boulevard in Burbank, wherever you are, Harry Steiner. Still there. Just lots of boards over the windows. Some graffiti. Nothing's moved in. Let's buy it. Let's buy it. And that'll do it. For this week's eat deets.

So now that we know the history of Sonic, let's review it. Let's start off by talking everything we liked, everything that stood out, everything that was good. This is good, done like it should be. That stuff that spank a lickin. We got to land And this is the good

I knew that you could This is the good We got to talk The Good, right? Yeah, yeah. It's September burger. Yeah. It's September burger.

There's a tournament going on. Yes. And as much as I hate to say it, Uh-oh. Sonic didn't have any burgers in the good category for me. Oh. RIP Sonic.

But I'm still going to give them a chance. I'm going to give them a chance to call out their competitor, Dairy Queen. So Sonic, what do you have to say for yourself? When I heard that the Fine Dining Podcast was looking for the best hamburger in town, I thought at long last, Sonic is getting its due. But then I heard a nasty rumor That Sonic is up against Dairy Queen I'm coming for your crown, Dairy Queen

I'm the only royalty in town And it's Sonic You ain't got the pickles for it You ain't got the pickles, Dairy Queen We got the Tate of Tots You know we got the corn dogs You ain't got no corn dogs I'm gonna say it like this

All we do is Sonic is frying and profiling That's all we do If you want to beat the burger You gotta beat the burger Woo Well Well that was a sweaty individual

You know but I trust him He There's something about him The cut of his jib He seems all right with me. Yeah. Okay. Well, great.

Let's let us actually talk about the good things here, though. Unfortunately, the burgers will be in later categories. I wish that wasn't the case. I actually was very excited for Sonic's burgers. Yeah, and you know what? Whenever I go to Sonic, I mean, truth be told, I typically don't get a hamburger. I always go. Yeah.

So I was very curious about this myself. So, let's go. We'll get into him in a bit. But as far as what actually was good, this place, was very clean. Everything looked like from a design standpoint, there was a little bit of like stuff was sun faded, but for the most part, it was like kind of crisp, like, decor almost feels like too generous of a word, but like, yeah, the way the place was decorated, they had a lot

of ordering speakers for the drive-up lanes, but they also had a little patio seating area with little picnic tables with umbrellas sticking out. And I noticed that they had walk-up ordering intercoms. Oh, I've never noticed that before. So there was no like walk-up window. It was just like oddly placed. And by the way, it didn't say walk up anywhere on it. It didn't like.

It's like we don't want you coming over here. It didn't imply that that's what they were for. But just given the fact that they were amongst tables and nothing else and you couldn't drive up to it, that seemed to be like what it would be. Oh, that's very interesting. And I thought that was neat. Yeah. I liked that.

Um, we ate in our car. We, uh, we ate in my car. That felt like a dig at you. We ate in our car. We ate in my car. Hold on, hold on. Um, but, but I will say, uh, any parking spot had a shaded awning overhead. Yeah.

And I think that is such a necessary touch, especially as we go into summer as things are hotter, uh, I mean, not even go into summer. We're in summer right now, but it was comfortable. Yeah. You know, this is going to be a little bit of a weird one. When we were sitting there and we were ordering, somebody else drove up to, what were going to say? You got lost in my eyes.

Yes, everybody. Great. But this has nothing with Sonic, I hate to say, but it was funny. Like, somebody pulled up to us. Oh, yeah. And I started to roll the window up because I was like, I don't want to hear. this guy's ordering and you like I kind of do yeah I love zeeves I love me some Eve's yeah yeah so I said okay we roll the window back down we just heard them more to like a

cheesecake it was very uneventful very uneventful very boring yeah dude was wearing oakley's and he was in a like a SUV or something like that yeah kind of hoping it's going to turn into like we can't keep seeing each other like this I love you yeah you know I said oh maybe it's going get good maybe it's going to get good that would have been so funny that would have been awesome And we would have outed them. We follow them home. We tell his wife, hey, or no, we stop him like a block from home. He's like, why are you following me?

Be like, we have video. Black and white pictures. Black and white pictures. And, and, you know, we want $10 million to buy stuff. That's our asking price. That's what we're trying to accomplish. So buy. Yes.

Yeah, I always do love hearing. what other people are ordering. I love hearing how other people are ordering. I kind of love spotting Karens. There's nothing better than getting to be a fly on the wall and just eat some popcorn while a Karen goes off. Yeah, yeah, especially when they get theirs, too. If they're going off and then someone comes and tells them off.

I know. But nothing so eventful here, just a dad with a couple kids in the back ordering a cherry limite. And by the way, he only ordered food for one and he definitely had kids in the back, which that I found funny. Wow. found funny what a jerk we should have followed them we should have followed him and beat them up um okay i want to talk about uh the cherry lime aid yeah yeah i see why it's like the famous thing yeah i thought that it was like

it was almost like a shirley temple in some ways uh you know it had that very similar taste profile yes uh even the lemonyness was almost a stand in for the carbonation of a shirley temple Yeah. It was a very close taste. And I love a Shirley Temple. I don't care that it's a feminine drink, typically. I love it, especially if you put an extra cherry, some in the bottom, and one on top for me. I love that.

It's delightful. I went nine and a half out of ten on the cherry lime eight. Oh, nice. Very high score. Yes, very cool. Whenever I would order the cherry limey, I would order with extra cherry. So something to consider. Like cherry syrup?

Extra cherry syrup. Okay. Extra cherry syrup. If you just say diabetes, come and get me. But, man, it's worth it. That's actually on the t-shirt for this podcast. But it says on the back. Right.

Yeah, it's me versus diabetes. Yeah. Yeah. As far as the drinks are concerned, I never had it before. But I almost feel like it might be like maybe the second most famous drink there, the ocean water. Which, by the way, terrible name. Yeah. Who wants to drink that?

Come on, guys. Come on. Because, like, famously, the thing that you hate most about swimming in the ocean is when some of it gets in your mouth. Is that ocean water? Yeah. Yeah, this, it reminded me of, like, Gatorade with a little bit more sugar. Yeah.

In it kind of thing. It had a little bit of her fruity flavor, but it still had, like, a saltyness. Yeah. You know, to it as well. So a little weird. I mean, still, it was good, but. uh this might be like a mental disconnect thing but when you say it tastes like gatorade because it was blue did it taste like blue gatorade or i don't know it's what i just no i think i

know what you're saying yeah like i would expect it to be like the blue gatorade yeah uh you know what i don't drink that much gatorade but i would i would maybe say that might be the closely to compare to and that maybe that is like i'm just equating it just because of the color or whatnot. But it did have like a berry-ish, a berry flavor to it just with a little bit more sugar or corn syrup, whatever, poured into it. You're all take it all for you. I'll take it all. One thing that did strike me about these drinks, and it's not like, it's not good, but it's also not like bad or, it's just an observation. These were very brightly colored. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, these are a thing that, like, are staining your insides for sure.

There's no way that just the natural assortment of ingredients creates these colors. Yeah. These are meant to be fun. And that's why they're colorful. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, they have, like, uh, different types of drinks where they have like, uh, like nerds, like dropped into them, like all this different kind of candy poured into it.

Which feels like a choking hazard. Nerd specifically, unless it's like, especially if it's a straw drink, yeah, almost feels hazardous. If it's like a spoon drink, like a shake or something, yeah, that's fine. That's one thing. You don't want to like straw. Yeah. Or they need to put like a warning label.

You got to be like so old to drink this drink or there's a choking hazard with this drink. It's like, why does my drink have the same warning label as an army man? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes me want to get it. Yeah. But that's just me. What else do you have in the good?

Ooh, you know what? Oh, man, I hate to say it. I didn't have a whole lot on the good. good side. Okay. I've got a few more then. Okay. I did mention I do like the, you know, kind of being outside, kind of dining, what is it,

Al-A-Fresca or Afresca? Al-Fresca. Al-Fresca. That kind of concept. It feels that way. Yeah. To me. So I know you're, you know, the Sonic, they don't control the weather kind of thing, but.

For context, these are the conversations you have when you're sitting in their car with somebody. heating for half an hour, 45 minutes. Right. You talk about who controls the weather. Right. You get to the bottom of that mystery. Is it Sonic?

It is. It is. We figured that out. Yeah. But no, I did enjoy that aspect of it. So, like, yeah, I don't think there's that many places that I can think of that are designed like Sonic, right? Where you can drive up and eat in your car, like a bellhop or whatever brings to your food.

Yeah. How many places are like that? I can't think of that. There's not a lot of, like, car hops specifically Sonic at the very least has maintained that model more than anyone I'm sure there's many places

that in a retro sense used to yeah okay yeah yeah to get this kind of set up usually you're indoors right exactly yeah yeah hit me with some of your goods man so I had three more foods

or things in here the tater tops yes okay I blame myself for, you know, the food comes. I got to take, like, pictures and video to put in the episodes and on Instagram and stuff. So sometimes it cools off a little bit before I get to taste it. But the tots, I can see how great these are hot, despite the fact that they were kind of only lukewarm when we got them. I didn't put it as a fault on Sonic.

I put it as a fault on me. So did I. And even still, I thought that they were salty, crispy. Right. And, like, the right amount of salt. Everything at Tater Tots should be. And they weren't, like, crazy, greasy. They were not.

They were not. Kind of when you get those elements, because the greasier a tater tot, usually it starts to soak the longer it's there. And this did maintain its form, even if it didn't maintain its heat. Yeah. Which I think is a testament to a good tater top. So I went seven and a half out of ten. And I think hot this could be in like the eight.

Probably even better. Yeah. What did I get my tater taut score? I think I gave it like a, actually, I wrote very perfect. So it was close to being pretty perfect. There you go. Yeah. So, yeah, no complaints on the tater tot, actually.

If you had to give it a score out of 10, what would you say? I think I gave it like 7.5, actually. Oh, great. I might have been a little conservative because I'm trying to think how many other place have I had tater tots and whatnot. Yeah. You know what I mean? But this is against all food. It's not a chance of only other tater tots.

Yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. No, you can go there for the tater tots every time and you won't be disappointed. it's like they're very good side they're known for yeah so if you're going to sonic and you're not defaulting to tater tots i encourage you to uh at least try them if you haven't yeah yeah i'm with you i'm with you uh then the corn dog okay i'm going to say this the dog part of the corn dog looked a little griff it did it was not a i do not want to use this word it was not a sexy

corn dog don't don't just talk with your eyes use your words use your words say what you feel you know the weird thing is about that corn dog I actually liked that wiener

or that sauce we were going to call it inside you're about to say something I just stern eye contact say it again I like that weiner there it is Yeah, I saw like a smirk coming in your mouth.

As soon as I said, I'm like, oh, jeez. Look, I didn't choose your words for you. You didn't. I'd take full responsibility. Yeah. But to me, it, it tasted okay. I was okay with it. I mean, um, so taste wise, it is in the good.

I liked it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I liked it. It was just the visual appearance of the hot dog part of it. I thought the breading was great. Yeah. It had a little bit of a sweetness to it. A little sweet, uh, cornbreadty flavor.

But the dog. looked gross I give it a six and a half out of ten I gave that corn dog that's funny I I gave it a 5.4 okay so for you it's just there yeah for me I think it's good um not amazing yeah yeah but I'd get it again yeah yeah but that is more of a condemnation of the rest of the menu then like a huge endorsement for this yeah corn dog yeah I swear man if If you have a, you know, November dog, November hot dog, I'm, I don't know, I'm just coming off the top of my head. Dogist? Yeah.

Oh, see, this, this is why, this is why this guy. Dogtober? Dogtober. These, I'm going to write these down. Pick a month. I can dogify it. I can add some sort of food to it. Yeah.

Trust. But, yeah, they're, they're hot dogs. I will, I get there, like, basically all the time. Okay. Uh, that I recommend. Yeah, the corn dog, it was, uh, again, maybe it's, uh, it cooled off a little bit. Maybe. I'm trying to think why, yeah.

But a corn dog is pretty like heat contained. Mm-hmm. Okay. Like all the warmth is in it. Yeah, yeah. So that one I think takes a little longer. So, I don't know, I'm giving them less benefit of the doubt than it sounds like you are, which, you know, that's fine. That's fine.

It is what it is. That's cool. Yeah. And then the last thing, uh, the sonic blast. Look, a Reese's ice cream treat. Like, that's not going to score in the bad. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So it was very dense, not quite as dense as a DQ Blizzard, but it was creamy. It was, I wrote the word delectable. I don't even recognize myself. Who writes, delectable. Had that kind of effect on him? Wow. But I went 8.2 out of 10. Okay.

Now, you know what? I think I gave. You got the Oreo. I did get the Oreo. And I'm all about an Oreo, whatever kind of thing. So I think for me, my score was like maybe like an 8.3. And here's the reason why is, one, is I loved how creamy it was. To me, this, it was a very creamy, uh, dessert.

Uh, I did not like the Oreo chunks could have maybe been a little bit smaller. Hmm. You know what I mean? As opposed to, you know, it's, I am, uh, in the camp of when something is like a mix in like that, like a Reese is like a brownie bite, like a Oreo. I, I don't even mind whole Oreos. Okay. Like, I'm very big on like a mix in like a mix in.

Like, whatever the chunked thing is, give me, like, at least one where it's like almost unbroken. Okay, okay. It feels like when you're opening like a bag of potato chips and like three of them are folded up into each other and you get that megabyte. It's like you find that one. Uh-huh. I love that. Oh, right. Okay.

Okay. But different tastes. Some people want just like the vibe of Oreo, but like not the texture. Yeah. I love Oreos. I just felt like, you know, let's say that they take, you know, four Oreos and mash it up and put it in this thing. Yeah. I felt like by the time I had taken like a good like five or six bites, like I had gotten most of like the big chunks of Oreo.

Maybe it could have been mixed better. I was going to say if you do like a halfway up, put some in, then another layer of ice cream and then more and then top it off. That would probably work. It's a better. It's a dispersion issue. Yeah. Okay. There you go.

Yeah. There you go. But still, very good. It was still, man, very good. It was delicious. Yeah. Delicious. Yeah.

I love Oreo as well. I only had the Reese's one to vary things up. But Oreo would, honestly, Oreo or Reese's, depending on the day, would have been my two go-toes. Yeah. So that is all for the good for me. Yeah. And notably absent is the service. I'm going to talk about that later, because to me,

it wasn't uh it wasn't not good but it wasn't good and so if you have service in the in the positive go for it oh ash just gonna say um did we talk about the onion rings i don't have it in the good uh okay but if you do you can um i kind of like the onion rings i gave it like a 6.3 that's one of my higher scores anyway just because um i liked how crispy and crunchy it was and that wasn't too greasy either so i do like that about an onion ring yeah so yeah uh i'll say You know what? This is the perfect opportunity

to transition into the not good but I will keep this conversation going. Nice. Let's play the jingle. This is not so good. I'm not quite sure about. It could have done without it. Something brings down the mood.

This is just not very good. So when you say that it's not too greasy, I do agree. And one of the testaments to that is the fact that all this food was on my dashboard. All this food was like put up in their little packages on my dashboard so that we were able to access it all and whatnot. And the fact that there wasn't a big onion ring residue grease spot on the dashboard is a great sign that these onion rings aren't too greasy.

Yes. So that's good. But the fact that I had to put all this on my dashboard, bothers me so much. Sonic, you're a drive-in. With that comes responsibility. And that responsibility means copy what in and out does.

Give us a box. Give us a tray. Give us some sort of surface that we can balance our food on and eat more comfortably as we hang out in our car at your establishment where you encouraged us

to eat this way. I'm not going to argue with that. Because that would have been helpful and it does it does make sense i'm going to play a little bit devil's advocate oh you feel better you're waiting to say that come on come on bring it okay bring it my only uh something to consider is we did order a lot of food so maybe if we had gotten uh you know like more uh man if we hadn't eaten like psychos right you're telling the wages we're going to ordering a few We're going to a lot of hamburgers here.

Maybe if we didn't order so much, it wouldn't have been so cumbersome? Maybe. I don't know. I only have two cup holders. If you get a drink and you go for a frozen thing, then you're already out storage. I'm like, yeah, I have one in the side of my passenger door. Yeah. Not going to do that.

Right. I'm not going to use the backseat center console because what am I going to rip my arm off to reach and get that? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like from a practicality standpoint, give us the little, you know, those drink holder cardboard things that they used to give out. Yeah. Give us one of those. Like account for these things. The technology exists. I've seen it at other places. The technology. So, yes, it is tech. It is high tech. So yeah, just not having a place for everything really. And I even told you this. I don't eat in my car. I don't let people eat in my car. I only let you eat in my car because it's, you. It's for the show, and it's for the bit, and it's to fully experience Sonic the way it is. And by the way, you didn't seem to spill anything. I didn't see crumbs.

I did not. I did a little, you know, spot check and make sure to keep an eye on everything. So I was very careful. I was very careful. And so I just felt like I was put in a position to be uncomfortable the whole time. Yeah. Because I'm balancing stuff. I'm eating.

Like I spilled on my shorts a bunch. Didn't get on my car. but like I was like all right well I'm just going to like squeeze my leg here together to yeah and you know when you're getting a smash burger and there's like those little charred bits kind of fallen off yeah or you know tater tot crumbs which they actually weren't too crummy which was impressive but like the first thing that happened was I took a drink of my cherry lime aid and the cap wasn't on all the way and it just kind of spouted out a little bit yeah that's the worst didn't love it didn't love it I get it I get it. So from a, from a UI standpoint, from a user interface standpoint, I was not a fan of the sonic experience. And yes, we could have gotten out and eaten at the little picnic tables in there. Given that their ads feature people eating in their car, to me, it feels like that's the experience they want to put forward. So that is what I wanted to review. Yeah.

Now, that makes sense, 100%. Yeah. Do you eat in your car? Uh, you know what? For work, I actually do more than I would like to. And I, maybe I've just gotten it down to a science or I just, you know, I wolf it down and like, okay, back to work kind of thing. Oh, okay. So for your lunch break at work. What you said for work, you eat in your car is like, you get paid. Do you have an only fan? Where you just eat in your car and that's, that's the whole thing. It's like, there's a market for that, though. You're so enterprising. I'm going to write that down. I bet somebody will pay for that. I'm sure somebody will.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd be sad for the world, but yes. I mean, like, there's, there's TikTok influencers who put, like, ranch fondue fountains in the center console of their car. Just. I hate it. Insane stuff. I hate it.

It does bother me a little bit because I've gone to son up before and I've had, you know, multiple people in the car. And it does feel like you're, you're kind of cramped. Confining your, your elbows and stuff. Like, very literally, like, oh, if I bump you, we could have a spill if you bump me. So it's like, yeah, it's like playing operation. The vibe that I felt when I was eating is very similar to when growing up, I would sneak downstairs and go into the pantry to sneak snacks at midnight. Yeah. And I don't want anyone in the house to know.

I felt like I had to be so deliberate and delicate and leave no trace. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, it's kind of a challenge in a fun way, but it's also not comfortable. Not comfortable. And that's it, that makes the, when you're a kid, it makes whatever you sneak or snuck to get that much more delicious. Right. But when you're an adult. Yeah.

You know, and you're not sneaking around. Yeah. I hear you. I hear you coming from. Yeah. Which, by the way, doesn't stop my parents from scolding me on my dietary decisions. It's what parents do. That's bless them.

God bless them. They'll call me like at like two in the morning. be like, are you eating an Oreo right now? I'm like, how'd you know? Yeah, what's another not good? Sitting in the passenger size, seeing the menu. This isn't a food thing necessarily, but. But it's still a UI thing.

Yeah, yeah. Just when we pulled up and, you know, you were saying, okay, you know, here's some stuff on the menu, blah, blah, blah. And I, you know, kind of cranked my head down to look and see. I couldn't see anything. I saw like, okay, here are some of the drinks I can order. And, you know, maybe a couple of sides. and that was it. I couldn't see anything from where I was.

And then on top of that, our screen was off. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there's like a big menu board that has like the stuff printed on it. But then there's an electronic screen that you can do that kind of changes. And yeah, it cycles through different things. It was just off. It just wasn't working or it wasn't turned on. So that takes away from the experience. So I's got to fix that guys.

Yeah. So like he's he's just like, I'll take your word for it. And I'm doing like the, you know, when you're at a concert and you have a bad vantage point and you hold your phone up and watch the concert through your phone. right i was doing that so you could see the menu right right look at my phone and i'll tilt it up yeah it's like all of a sudden i you know like he healed my blindness i was like oh wow look at all this stuff oh that's what we're getting yeah oh we're getting that yay uh yeah okay all right here's another one oh man i feel like i'm just like old man yells at clouds uh no roller skates oh son i have footage i okay okay this is creepy I did get out of my car and film an employee walking

I did keep it to like just their knees and below Yes, yes, it was tasteful I was not trying to I was not trying to be creepy I was also not trying to be noticed Yeah, yeah Yeah, no roller blades

Just just or roller skates Yeah, just walking Yeah And that saddens me because that is What the expectation is at Sonic I do get that You know None of this stuff gets taken away

unless there are safety concerns. True, true, true. So, like, yeah, I don't want anyone to get hurt, but also I do want my food rollerbladed to, or roller skated to me. Yeah, I didn't even imagine that they did not do that. The one that's closer to where I live, they come out there on roller skates. Oh, so they do still do it at yours. Yeah, they still do it.

They still do it. So, and again, yeah, I mean, that's typically what happens, like something bad happens. So they're like, okay, no more. Maybe just that girl didn't know how to roller skate or something, and they had her, I mean, they shouldn't have hired her. I'm saying. Yeah. I'm saying. If you don't know how to roller skate, you don't deserve to participate in the American economy.

Right. You get out. You get out and you go where you belong. Oh, you know what? One thing, and I don't know, I guess this is part of it, too. Like the food did not look particularly appetizing to me. Like, one way, first when it came out and I hate getting it. like that wrapped up foil hamburger and the hamburger looks like it's like it's flat it's like yeah like

two or three pancakes or whatever is in there it's like when you get a hamburger you're expecting something a little bit more substantial and this thing was like super flat yeah so there were a couple of them that were like that i think all the ones that were in the foil seemed that way yeah it was just disappointing visually it wasn't like a nice looking sleek array which i mean part of that goes to advertising we are so used to seeing beautiful food in ads that that's that you're that are true and when you think about like even some of the most delicious meals you had they don't always look amazing um you know plating is different than what the object itself looks like yeah yeah um you know i've had some amazing burgers that didn't look like anything

and i've had some great looking burgers that didn't taste too great so uh but you still you know we're visual creatures we like uh it's going to affect our appetite when we see something that looks good yeah and see if the hamburger like looked kind of you know whatever but then the taste was like just out of this world or something fantastic then you know all's forgiven yeah you know but i feel like it didn't do that yeah unfortunately so i actually had one of the burgers in the not good section okay and the other two are in just there um but before i cover the one in the not good I want us to talk about it later just in case it ends up in the September Tournament.

Okay. Which should indicate the long-term projection of how Sonic will perform, but I want to talk about them in order. So we'll start with the basic burger after we're done with this segment. With that said, the last thing that I have in Not Good, the intercom pacing of one of the employees really bugged me and like look every person that we encountered at this sonic was nice i don't have an issue with the attitudes of the service the speed of service maybe a little on the long side for fast food but again we ordered a lot of food i don't really care that much

i'm i don't have anything else going on i'm i'm here to hang out and just enjoy so like i'm i'm not in a rush yeah yeah so it's fine um but you do notice and especially when it's fast food you notice a little bit more. Yeah. But when I was trying to order our frozen desserts, which I may have gone crazy if this person was the person that we ordered our all the rest from. I feel like I would say something like, hey, I want this. And there would be like three follow up questions before I can even like specify at like

what size or like if I want it as a combo or specifically in my case with burgers, no cheese, stuff like. that I felt like I would start to order something and there would be a follow up question before I was even done. And I'm like, let me get to the period. And then,

you know, it's a back and forth. Yeah. You know, it felt like I was playing basketball against like Michael Jordan. And he was there just spiking the ball down after every shot I was trying to take.

And I was like, can we just play horse? Like I take a shot, you take a shot. You're still going to win. It's okay. Yeah, I've seen that before, right, where you go at a restaurant or especially how to drive-thru, obviously.

Yeah. And you're saying something. And they are just so like in the zone with their job. Yeah. Not necessarily in a good way, but they know what the required follow-up questions are. Right. Because a lot of these places, you're not really allowed to have your own rapport as a drive-through person. You have a flow chart.

Basically, you're waiting for a prompt and then you respond to the prompt with your pre-existing follow-up question. And that's what this is. Yeah, in the zone, not in a good way. I think that's a great way to put it. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that is unfortunate. Like, just, yeah, like you said, just give me a second. Like, I know what size I want.

And they're already saying, you want a large one of this, one of that. Like, what flavor is like, I'm going to tell you the flavor. Like, it's an ice cream thing. I only have certain options. I have to tell you a flavor. Like, did you think that I was about to say, I'll take a sonic blast and I was going to end there? Yeah, exactly. I'll be in my car.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll take one food, please. then yeah, there should be follow-up questions. Right, right, right. This isn't my first time at a restaurant. I know the dance. I know the information you need from me.

I know the information I want you to have from me. Right, yeah. So, yeah, but nice individual. Like, I'm not mad at this person, but it is just like, I felt like I couldn't take a breath. And it was like, it was making me anxious. I hear him, I hear him. So that's all for the not good for me is other than that one burger.

You ready to move on? Yeah, let's do it, man. Let's do it. We're going to talk about everything at Sonic that was just there. Not good nor bad, but they end every intercom call with Have a Supersonic Day. It's a thing I noticed. Don't know if I liked it, didn't hate it. Felt nothing.

Right. Why should I have one of your super sign-day? I want to have my own kind of day. Yeah. It was one of those things like, yeah, you go to McDonald's, have a McDonald's day, have McDonald's, whatever. It's like that famous thing that they always say. That they always say. They did. I'll get a happy meal and I just go, pull on up. Ba-ba-ba-bye. I would be going to McDonald's every other day just for that reason. If they just sing bye-bye to you. Yeah, I'll just go up there, give me one food. Yeah. And just wait for them to say, bye-da-bye, bye-bye. Oh, what a great idea. Man.

Let's buy McDonald's. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm a stop. I'm a stop. I'm a stop. Yeah. So I had a fortune cookie yesterday that said, you have an entrepreneurial spirit.

And I feel they were wrong. You have an, I got your fortune cookie. Man, just working together. Working together. But like, what does have a supersonic day mean? Yeah. Like, are they saying, hey, go so fast that your day ends soon? Life sucks.

And, yeah, just. Just get. through it as fast as you can. Yeah. Eat our slop and just power through it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a big fan of when they just try to work their name into whatever

kind of thing. Like I don't, I know I'm at Sonic. You know, you don't have to, you know, do this extra thing. I'm already here. I'm already buying something. You won. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did it. You did it. So let's let's just leave it at that. Just I'll order some food. You bring it out to me. Yeah.

You know, we want to make eye contact. not make this more than it needs to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cheap and dirty. Yeah. Let's make this transaction the same as like I knocked on your stall and was like, hey, man, I'm out of toilet paper. Do me a solid.

Right. Okay, I do want to jump into the September burger of it all. Yeah, yeah. So the first round burger, the number one on their menu, is a little bit of a cheat. It's a spin away from their normal burgers. It's the double sonic smasher. Yeah. They have a smash burger that they're trying out.

that's their number one and number two on the menu are different variations of smash burger. All the rest of their burgers are not smash burgers, yet this one gets the distinction of the one that we bring to the first round of September burgers. So this is going to be against Dairy Queen. So I thought for the Double Sonic Smasher, the pickles were really nice. The smash texture, my first bite was kind of miserable. It was a little bit tough, which I expect crispy, not tough. I don't want pushback from the meat on a smash burger.

As I got closer to the center of the burger, it got warmer and it was a little bit more of the texture that I expect. But there was like a whole layer of crust even coming out of the box. A lot of it too. A lot of it. So yeah, just like a lot of this crust kind of just like seeping out and it's not like sometimes if a smash burger is really good, that little extra stuff on the outside is the star. You take a bite, it's salty, it's crispy, it's beefy, it's what you want. Flavorful. This, for some reason, was like, oh, it had expired.

Not in terms of like rottenness, but just like this is past its prime moment to enjoy it. And then the sauce inside, it seemed like it had like its own like proprietary smash it sauce. I don't know. I don't think this was the mayo ketchup like mix, like the fry sauce mix. that some of the other ones had. This seemed maybe a little bit more Thousand Island-y. Okay, maybe. Because, yeah, I didn't get a handle on it either.

So either one of those, I think, I think fits. I wanted this to be better. I went 5.21 out of 10. What were your overall thoughts on it and then your score? Yeah, I thought the texture, it, the texture was cool. I do like the texture, but, you know, of a smash burger like that. But, yeah, there was a lot of it. It seemed like it was weird how much there was, like that was kind of spilling out

the sides and everything. Some of the bites were good and some were not because I think it was inconsistent. Yeah, you had to like work your way towards the center of the burger, I think to get like the sauce or some of the onion or whatever flavor. And even the warmth. Yeah. Yeah, like it definitely cooled off on the edges way fat. I mean, by nature of them just being exposed, that makes sense. Like yeah. So I'm not mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it does affect the enjoyment. Right. So it made it a lot. little difficult to, I guess, to really like it. That flavor, if they had more of the flavor all the way throughout, like sometimes, you know, if you eat a hamburger and you eat all the hamburger out and you've just got some of the bun left. Yeah. But the buns got like some of the

sauces and all the other kind of stuff on there. You can enjoy just eating that bread. Yeah. Right. And I feel like there was, there was a little bit of bread on this that just didn't taste good. It was, it came off as very dry to me, especially like in those first few bites. And when you get to the end of it, once you've gone through the meat and you've got just, you know, some of the bread left over, you're stuck eating if you want to eat it dry and it's bread. It's pretty dry. Yeah, it wasn't like as fluffy as I like bread to be or is like moist. So what was your score on this one? I gave this a 4.87.

So 487 with my 5.21 is going to average out to a 5.0.4.4.4.4.4 with my 5.21 is going to average out to a 5.0.4.4. which puts it 0.07 behind Dairy Queen's first round burger. So Dairy Queen will be advancing to round two of Septemberger. Congratulations, Dairy Queen. You know, sometimes you just got to bow down to royalty. That's way it works sometimes. To the real queen. So good job Dairy Queen.

They will be in the Septemberger semi-finals. We will see who they are against soon. Ooh, exciting. It will either be Jack in the Box or Wendy's. I can go either way. Disagree. Oh, nice, nice. That's the number one and the number eight seed.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, since Sonic has been eliminated from September. We can just freely talk about the other two burgers without the need to be

coy or save anything for later because they're out. Oh, okay. So I'm going to go back to that burger I didn't like. Yeah. The garlic butter, bacon, burger. This on paper sounds like my jam.

I love garlic. I love bacon. I love burgers. I like butter. And wouldn't you know, the one ingredient that really dominated was the butter. Yeah. To the point that it felt like I was eating from a tub of like old country or something.

Yeah, it was like that. It was gooey. It was so buttery. Yeah. It was so buttery. And I've always said there's no such thing as too much garlic. This may have hit it for me. It's pretty close.

But I think it was really the interplay between the garlic and the butter. Yeah. That was so off putting to me. Yeah. It was just way too buttery of a taste. Did you feel that as well? No, I did. the the the yeah having that kind of texture you know texture is a part of food right so if you go to bite

into a hamburger and it comes out you know gooey or jealous you know what i mean just something that you're not expecting it's like it kind of makes you do a double take yeah um i am gonna say out of all the hamburgers this one was my favorite one really yeah and i'm not believe i'm not saying it was like great or good yeah any stretch but i think i like this one more just because i do like garlic so much I'm a big fan of it. I am too. I've literally said there's no such thing as too much. Yeah.

But I just think something about this really didn't work for me. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little, yeah. I went 3.47. Wow. Wow. But what's interesting is I wrote, it's not for me, but not objectively bad.

This was just a matter of my tastes, I think. It wasn't working for me. Yeah. But I could see how someone was like, who would really like this. Yeah. Yeah, I think the one thing I wrote for that, when I wrote a couple things, I wrote very garlicky. Yeah. I wrote very buttery.

Yep. Which is appropriate. And I put, it has a lasting flavor. I think when you, you know, because it's garlic, you know, once you bite into it, like you can really, you taste it after you know, I mean you, after you've kind of chewed it up and you swallow it and everything, it's still that garlicky kind of lingers, which if you're a garlic fan is great. Yeah, that's part of the appeal of it. You know, one thing I would have liked if it had been maybe spread out more. And then I don't know if there was maybe like more, if there was like onions or or more of something on it. I do like vegetables.

Yeah, yeah, just to kind of, yeah, it's only, all it was was just like a vehicle to, to taste this, you know, garlicky butter we made. Usually garlic aoli, when I find it on burgers like Applebee's in the first year of September, had a burger that was like a garlic aoli with mushroom on it. Uh-huh. And that worked. tremendously. So I wonder if mushrooms would have cut this, but also fast food, mushrooms are, I don't know if that's a food I'm rolling the dice on with fast food. Right. I think there's a reason why you typically do not see mushrooms at most fast food places anyway, right? So I'm sure they know what they're doing. But yeah, uh, yeah, I just, I didn't love it. I wanted to. I really

expected to like it a lot. I know. When you, when you told me that was what we were getting, of course, I didn't see the picture yet, but when I heard, that's what we were getting. I thought, okay, well, this, there's going to be one I guaranteeed I'm going to like. Yeah, guaranteed, butter, garlic. What was your score for it? My score for this one was 6.5. We've got a 4.98. Okay.

So, less than the first round burger just because of how much I disliked this one. But, wow, still didn't make the cut. Still didn't make the cut. And then the other burger that was just there, the bacon sonic stack now, I will. admit this is actually called the cheesy bacon stack but not in this zone this is a cheese free zone here y'all eat mold right and when when when he ordered it like every hamburger you were like no cheese every he said it like at the top of the because her intercom pacing wasn't great i was like did you get did you register this did you not yeah yeah so i said in case

for three burgers i think i said no cheese five times yeah that was just to like make sure they right love it look I'm gonna I'm gonna tell the people what I told you cheese is a thing that some people use to describe the smell of feet so if y'all are okay eating that thing fine but I'm not wrong still funny so the bacon sonic stack this was onion bacon mayo ketchup so basically a fry sauce mix almost and it's on texas toast now this Texas toast was a little bit browner than it probably should have been. I think they overtosted it maybe a little bit too much.

And I think if this was more of like the light brown Texas toast that you get, it would have been a better balance of all things. The meat was a little bit dry, but not as bad as the first burger I thought. The toast tasted solid, even if I thought that they overt toasted it. Yeah. It didn't taste burnt or anything, which is. Right. Yeah, did not.

And the onion, I thought, played well with the, The mayo ketchup mix and a good ratio of it relative to the meat. This was my favorite of the burgers. Okay, nice. I went 5.97. It was just, just shy of what I would call good, where that threshold is a six. Yeah. I thought this was the best of the offerings, though.

Yeah, you know, with this one, I did like it as well. I gave it a 4.99. So I thought it had, one, it was very substantial, like with the double patties and the Texas toast. So this is a pretty, you know, substantial filling hamburger, which I'm a fan of, you know what I mean. Especially when you're, you know, you're broke and, you know, you're just trying to fill up so you're not hungry anymore. Right. It's a good hamburger for that. I thought it had like good flavor with the sauces and everything in there.

So it was actually, it was a, I didn't hate this. This was a pretty good hamburger. Like I said, for me, I like a hamburger that's got more stuff like on it in it. Yeah. Like if they had added more of the onions, maybe look. more of the sauce and why to help put me over the top. Yeah, it seemed like they really- Over the top of the middle.

It would have put it over five. Yeah, just barely over the top. Yeah. But it was still, it was pretty decent. So like I said, my score was a 4.99. Okay. So when you mix that with my 5.97, that gets at a 5.48, I think. Yeah.

That's not a bad score. I'm just for that one. I'm free balling this math, but I think it's right. I think it's right. Right. It's all in the delivery, man. You said it right. So I like math. I genuinely do. I do. Maybe not like calculus and stuff. I'm not over here doing like limits. Right. But yeah, simple addition. Come on. I'm all about it. Averaging. And then the other thing I had in just there was the onion rings. The batter tasted similar to the corn dog. And I told you this. I was like, I have a suspicion. This is before I had even taken a bite of the corn dog. Just off a sight. I tasted the onion ring and I was like, I think that this is going to. to be the same batter that they're using for their corn dog. And then I grabbed the corn dog, tried it. And I was like, very close.

Pretty similar, yeah. Very close. And you think you want it? I don't think you do. It's a little, it's a little too like corn forward or like corn breadish. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't like it was too sweet. If the sweetness comes from the onion, I don't mind.

But from the breading, I don't know if sweet is what I want. I want savory in my under rings. Yeah, I hear him. I want savory with like a dip that, uh, Maybe has some kick to it. That's my ideal thing. I had these with honey mustard and with ketchup, and they were fine. I went four out of ten on the onion rings.

Okay, four. Okay, well, okay. Yeah, so with me, I did like how crunchy the onion rings were. So, again, like just the texture of it. So I was a fan of that. Yeah, the batter was a little sweet on it. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, cake batter or whatever, but it definitely did have a sweetness

to it. Yeah. And sometimes I do like food that intentionally has a bit of sweetness to it and then also has some savory aspects to it as well. And you put those two things together like those flavors kind of play off of each other. Yeah. You know?

It's almost like it was not quite like salted caramel. You know, those are two very different. I was going to say if I'm putting sweet with something I want salty, not necessarily savory. Got. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. But like, I don't know. There's a one of my favorite. Barbecue places in Austin just got a Michelin Star and their signature offering is a peach tea glazed pork belly and it's sweet and savory and so

like I know it can be done in a way that I like it yeah yeah but it's definitely not my preference I prefer salty and sweet together I prefer salty and savory together yeah sweet and savory it's a little I'm a little picky okay no you're okay you're yeah to get into the nuance, the specifics of it. I get that. I get that. Those onion rings, I gave it, actually gave it a 6.3.

Yeah, you liked those. I did. Which I didn't hate them. I didn't hate them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was just, I was thrown off by the, by the flavor profile, not matching what I wanted from an onion ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that is all the elements of Sonic.

What was there, just there, what was not good, what was good. We covered a good... Did you have anything else? No, I was about to ask you. Do you remember what your exact favorite thing was? Because I'm looking at my list, I think my highest score with the Tater Tots. The second was the ocean water. The cherry lime made.

Okay. Yeah, I gave it a nine and a half. Yeah, okay. Like, you just... Like every day, every day. I could not. I should not, but I could, yes, yes. Okay, cool.

I think we know enough about Sonic to give our final thoughts and score it, but that's still a ways away, because there's a couple steps in the way. Before we do that, we have to see what others thought of the Sonic Drive-in that we went to in this week's Yelp from Strangers. We need a little Yelp, A little Yelp from strangers. A one star, two-star, three-star, four, or five y'i.

So get a little yelp, a little yelp, a little yelp from strangers. A little yelp, a little yelp. Give us those complaints while you literally white and die. Yelp! All right, this is Yelp from Strangers, our segment where we turn to Yelp and read out our favorite. One, two, three, four, and five star Yelp reviews. Hell yeah. Of the very Sonic that we went to, Mark, do you mind if I go first?

Please do. One star review. This is a one star review from Billy B from San Gabriel, California. written August 7th, 2022. Sonic gotta be the worst fast food place in America. This place, honestly. I paid for a large fry. They fucking gave me the smallest portion ever.

Burger was ass. The drink was watered down. The chicken tenders was like the ones you get from the AMC. Dry as where the fuck are the roller skates. That could have been entertainment for the shitty food I received. Wasted 30 bucks on this. this bullshit. I don't know one mother fucker on the planet who would wake up

and be like, I want to get Sonic. Fuck out of here with that shit. You've got to be messed up in the head to want to eat here. Most cussing per capita I've ever had in a Yelp review. Oh my. Stars and Garters.

Oh, that. Wow. Man. I don't think he liked it. I'm just going to go out on a limb. I don't know. much but I'm gonna call him like I see him I don't think he cared for that Sonic I like that he called out the roller skates though that yeah yeah yeah okay so we're not the only one yeah and that was from 2022 oh man that was not that long ago that they cut it you know three years without roller skates at least yeah yeah yeah we don't know that it didn't date back even years that's a good point yeah and that's one star five star review all right so next up we have Zoe K uh it looks like she gave it actually five stars. This was back on

December 9th of 2017. All right, so here we go. First time here, arrived Saturday 5.45 p.m. We wanted to eat before we shop at Target. We pulled into a stall and waited a few minutes and pushed the button for service. The girl taking her order

sounds like she got her hand over her mouth. We couldn't hear. The people next to us have the same problem, so we just went by the order on the screen. I ordered the corn dog, small fries, and small drink. My husband got the bacon cheeseburger, something, fries, and a Coke. I hadn't had a corn dog in ages.

It was so good. I had a few bites my husband's burger, and I thought it was nice. The lettuce and pickles were fresh and crisp. The tomatoes are great, too. Usually, they're soggy and sad. The bread was interesting. It tasted like French toast. That's how I felt about the onion rings.

like too sweet yeah i i thought it was good but my husband hated the sweetness he was very unhappy with his choice i liked it a lot he said afterwards that he wasn't jack in the box happy l-o-l what does that even mean who jack-in-the-box happy is not a thing don't try to don't try to make it a thing yeah all right so i see you i see you i can totally see why this is a i can totally see why this is a podhead go to munchy place. Everything tastes like candy and salt and all the things you need to satisfy cravings. I would live here if I was preggers. Great.

I'm just going to social. I'm going to circulate that one isolated clip. Beautiful. I can totally understand why there are complaints about the service and the food. It's a hit or miss here. I was happy. My husband hated it. I mean, oh, well.

At least try it once. I love that she's just discounting her husband. He's right out the door. He has no part of the fact of like the five star factor of this review. Yeah. Like this should be a three star review with how many things are like, my husband hated this. He said it's not even as good as Jack in the box. Right.

But she's straight up like, yo, if I were pregnant, I'd live here. Right. Bottom line. I will move in. I liked it. I was happy. Yeah. Even with his choices, I was still happy.

Yeah. I love it. She's running that relationship. And then a bunch of photos. Sorry, sorry. I'm trying to get you in trouble. How about those two Yelp reviews? You can get three more over at my Patreon, the extended Yelp from Strangers segment, at Patreon.

At patreon.com slash fine dining podcast. In addition to that, you can get a free full fine dining episode every single month. That covers a restaurant that is exclusive to Patreon. Recently, I've done Boston Market. I went to one of the 16 remaining in the country. all the way in New York City. It was not great, but I got to cover it. And for September, the Septemberger semifinals and finals episode

will be my exclusive Patreon episode. However, it will be free. All you have to do is go to the Patreon to hear it. Otherwise, you're going to have to wait an additional week to hear how the tournament ends. That's patreon.com slash fine dining podcast. Thanks so much. Hope to see you there, Dinamaniacs.

Okay, Mark, it's almost time to give our scores, but before we can, please gaze upon the Chachky of mediocrity. Over a hundred restaurants scored in my pursuit of perfect mediocrity, and while I found it in Chili's, you didn't join me on this journey. Since it's your first time on the show, I need to ask you to define the ends of your personal spectrum. You're zero out of ten, your ten out of ten. so we've got to take a stop at the Calibration Station.

All right, Mark, I want to hear all about the worst dining experience you've ever had. Something you would call a zero out of 10, something you would call a 10 out of 10. the floor is yours you can start with either one wow you know what i hate to say it but uh i think it's out of denny's like yeah man i hate throwing denny's under the bus but there was it was something it was it was one of those everything going wrong kind of things like yeah the when you walk in like and you sit down it's like it smells strange in here and by that point in time it's like you feel like oh man is it too late to get up and leave kind of thing the smart thing to do would have been to get up and leave. But for whatever reason, you know, we stayed in like, you know, like when the food is

just, it was, it was too greasy. Like sometimes I understand it's Denny's and you're going to have some, you know, greasy. It's like sliding off your fork. Yeah. And you know what I mean? When it's starting to like kind of collect on the plate kind of thing. So it was, and I, I swear, I think it was just like, you know, that particular experience. Like I've eaten at Denny's, you know, since. So it smells funky. Food's too greasy. I assume service wasn't great. Yeah. And it was, I was going to say where it was. I guess I shouldn't say that. But yeah. You're going to shut them down. They need to get shut down. But it was funny because I was doing the, I was doing the podcast. As a matter of fact, my own podcast, geek off the street, shameless plug. And yeah, after we did. I want you to have

shame. I don't want it to be shameless. I want you to live in it for a moment. Think about what you You just did. You sit right there. I wanted to be a shameful plug. We sit here. There you go. And, yeah, we went there because we were like, hey, we wrapped up the show. Let's go get something to eat.

And again, it was like the smell was bad. The food was. And I think it was just that particular Denny's. But, yeah, very, very disappointing. Let's see, my favorite. You know what? There was a really good. I don't know.

It was somewhere in L.A. and it was a Brazilian barbecue place. I went there with some of my friends. Oh, you know, like the All You Can Eat, the Cherasca? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, where you just turned the dial upside down or whatever. Was it a, if I go to Chow or was it like? It wasn't. It was like a, you know, mom and pop, I don't say a mom and pop shop because it was in like this,

it was in a, it was on the third floor of some building. Very nice decor inside. I could not tell you the name of this place. I just knew it was like somewhere in downtown L.A. There was a line, you know, waiting to get in. always telling that yeah very good sign and just the decor inside was nice uh the the food obviously you know i love brazilian barbecue but it's also like the little the sides and extras you know if you want to go up to the buffet table like everything it was just the perfect dining experience

you know between the food the ambiance i was there with my friends did they have fried plantains they did have fried plantains yeah you all yeah they have pecania the uh the sirloin cap i don't That's the best cut of, I'm sure they did. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's just got a little bit of fat on it. It's just such a tender cut of like all Brazilian steakhouses that I've been to have had it. I'm sure they did. But it's such a good bite every single time.

And I am pro fat on a piece of stick. Yeah, yeah. Especially if it's like well rendered. The only time you should be anti-fat on steak is if it's like not cooked well. Yeah, yeah. It's like that jiggly, yeah, still kind of pale. And yeah, that's a whole separate monster. but yeah, that was very good.

Cool. Well, somewhere between bad Denny's and Brazilian barbecue lies today's meal in my car at Sonic. So, we can finally put Sonic to the Chili's Test. Okay, so to kind of wrap everything up, Sonic, great place, or will it fail? great place to, you know, get your drink, to get your tater tots. I highly recommend the hot dogs. We're not talking about hot dogs right now. The hamburgers overall, I was, overall, I was kind of disappointed with, you know.

That's the food. Getting into like the ambiance and all that kind of stuff, your car, very nice. Gregorian chant music. Oh, yeah, we didn't talk about that. You know, we had a new Pope recently and I was like, you know what? I'm in charge of the music, and I put on, in honor of your last name, being Pope, I put on just straight up Gregorian chants. Right. And it got old fast. And the best part is, like, he put it on and then he turned it up. It wasn't like, okay, we're going to put it on and just, you know, just, it's just something to listen to. Roll the windows down, turned it up. And I was like, man, I hope people are just like walking by, just doing double takes and looking like what's about to happen. Spot on.

Yeah, spot on. So that was fantastic. Again, some of the bad parts, so I would have loved to have seen them on skates. Would have been nice. And again, this is just a nitpick. Like, not seeing the menu, just it irked me. Like, am I supposed to get out of the car?

Yeah, let's lower the board down. Something. You know, when you drive through a McDonald's or a Burger King, it's at the right height. People in the backseat, people in the passenger seat, they can see Sonic. What are you doing? Yeah, man.

Help us help you or something like that. So overall, my score is a 4.70. So that's higher than me. I was definitely a bit more down on this. And I think it's because I really expected more. I came into today being like, oh, this is going to be a solid like mid-fives. Maybe it'll crack a six.

Same here. That's what I thought. For fast food, that's not a bad spot to be. And just kind of a lot of the elements fell short. The burgers, I was ready. to be impressed and I was not. The tauts, I wish I had had them hot, but they were good. Cherry Limeade, bomb.

Sonic Blast, like, you're not going to mess that up. You can't. So they do have some reliables. They have things that are worth going for. So regardless of the score I give it, you're going to find something at Sonic that you'll enjoy. It just might be kind of few and far between, which is a little bit of a bummer for me, but it is what it is. Yeah. I gave Sonic just barely at the bottom end of what I'd call mediocre.

I went 4.06, which averages with your score and goes up on the Chotchky of Mediocrity at a 4.38. Tucks in right by Denny's under Denny's. It's a little bit better than McDonald's, a little bit better than Burger King. And a little bit better than IKEA. Yeah. Yeah. And so to me, like, that feels like when you look at its neighbors, it does feel like it's in kind of the right zone. Yeah.

I think. No, I completely agree. Looking at where it landed, I'm like, okay, yeah. Yeah. So that means Sonic is officially not as good as Chili's. Not as good as Chili's. Well, that is the episode. Septemberger rolls on next week.

I'm going to be going to the number eight seed before I go to the number one seed. So next week, join me for an episode on Jack in the Box. And for reasons you will find out, it needs to be family friendly. So I got it out of my system by reading that one Yelp review today. Oh, yeah. that had all the curses in the world. You're good for the rest of the year. I'm good for the rest of the year.

Mark, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thank you. If you want to look in that camera, tell people where they can follow you on social media, more about geek on the street. Oh, yeah. That's a bad. You're okay.

You're okay. Yeah, we're on the gots pod. That's, you know, what you can type in, you know, to the interwebs. Let's see. We're on, we're on YouTube. We're on Spotify. We're on Apple Music. Basically, anywhere you can listen.

to a podcast. We are there. I highly recommend going to our YouTube channel. We're on Instagram. Again, you can type in the gods pod, geek off the street. Yeah, but we cover, like you're saying earlier, geek culture, pop culture, and basically whatever else we want to talk about. We do that too. But anime, science fiction, fantasy, just movies in general. And television to comic books, we cover it all, anything nerdy related. Amazing. And you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Fine Dining Podcast. Blue Sky, Fine Dining Podcasts. Dot B-Sky.

dot social. I'm never there, but follow me there and you'll force me to use it. You can get the full Yelp from Stranger's segments on Patreon. Don't forget,

I'm doing September Ger a little bit differently this year, so you can still fill out your bracket all the way until the final episode comes out. That'll be the Wendy's episode at the end of the month. So if you're following along,

you have a little bit of an advantage because you already know that Dairy Queen eliminated Sonic. You already know the two eliminations that happened last week. So follow along and you can have your choice of a restaurant that I will review in a future episode and I'll write a rap song about you or anything else food related or restaurant related that you want me to rap about.

You can choose. I will produce that rap song for you. In the meantime, that is another one in the books. Thank you so much for joining. I appreciate all of you. Have a fine day. Well, there's another one in the folks. We judge the service up to the cooks.

And while we may have gotten a couple of dirty looks, no, the journey can never stop. Now, from the bottom down to the top, we've got a new and low and everything's unlocked. And that's because chillies to the leg of duty. It's the public on a stone. mediocrity So now we got a brand new kind of test

That's the worst we gotta know Could we should lay out in the air Triple Dipper got the ribs A main course Felt big little in the middle It's gone now it's got to be the lock for what we use When we put things up on the charge game Medioprity

So there's another one in the books Yeah, there's another one in the books And we will see you next a week and next a week, baby