Sonic Beach Fort Lauderdale had their Grand Opening on 11/11/11. With free food give-a-ways and the perfect ocean front view many ranted and raved about one of America's classic fast-food joints. But when my special someone and I went to go experience the fun for ourselves we were quite disappointed by both visits.A couple of months prior we went on a road trip to Orlando to go see Little Dragon and on the way we stopped at one of the Sonic joints up north. The Sonic's up north, which is something all South Floridians know, are the original Sonic's because half the fun about eating at Sonic is having to drive 45+ minutes to get there. The menus offered in the scarce northern parts of Florida carry an array of food choices and the servers can actually skate on their quads, but sadly the Sonic Beach in Fort Lauderdale has not been living up to the standards that all other Sonic's across the states hold. On our first visit we realized that most of the food on the menu were very similar. "Hamburger, Hamburger with Bacon, or Cheeseburger" just to name the bulk of the menu, were the choices given to represent Sonic's "Best." I ordered a breakfast sandwich and my 's.s.' (special someone) ordered a hamburger with bacon. After a short while our food was on its way on plastic trays when our server, struggling on his quads, dropped our food. He looked up at us and smiled apologetically, he continued to our table, brought us what didn't manage to fall off our tray, apologized and went back to the kitchen to go get a new order. When my breakfast sandwich reached the table I was confused as to why it was wrapped up as if it had been a to-go order, in these aluminum baggies. I kept on and took a bite into my food and slowly chewed in disgust. My sandwich tasted like it was frozen all day, thawed out and then nooked in a microwave less than the time that the "directions" indicated. Among the difficulty of finding food that actually looked appetizing the one thing I wanted to order and had at my last Sonic's experience was french toast sticks, and as silly as it sounds, I was really looking forward to them but no matter how many times I searched the double sided, laminated paper... french toast sticks were no where to be found.
The last note to be made challenges the way that Sonic Beach has presented itself. Sonic has incorporated not only a bar but inside seating with a fresh beach air or central air conditioning options. With such a setting many consumers are under the impression that Sonic has become a restaurant, especially when severs take your order and bring the food to the consumer, but when the food is actually eaten the sudden reminder hits many of the costumers in the face saying it is still a fast food product. If Sonic Beach we're to make the inside of it's eatery in the same style as most fast food joints; for example, having the customer walk up to order their food, wait to pick it up and chose to go sit down and eat, may just put things into perspective and give Sonic a more solidified identity, consequently having more Sonic Fans look like the duo below because I know Sonic's food at the end of the day is worth it.
