Not Just Good

Sonic Drive-In

by Drew Lazor

After years of Pavlovian torture at the hands of those TV spots featuring wise-cracking white folks eating in economy sedans, Philly got its very first Sonic Drive-In this November. What's odd — anecdotally, at least — is that for all the childlike squeals that those flashy, liquid-cheese-laden ads elicit from my fast food-loving associates, few people I know had ever been to it. We crewed up and piled into my dinged-up '98 Honda Civic to change all that.

If Port Richmond's Sonic is any indication, in the "Sonic's got it, others don't" slogan, the "it" refers to "a geographic location that would be well-protected from Visigoth raiders." The restaurant is far-flung, tucked off Aramingo near a Lowe's and an empty mud field that looks like it'd be a great place to set off fireworks. Nevertheless, the pull-in area (if you've never been, there's no inside seating — grub in-vehicle only) was spotless and lit up like a damn nighttime construction site.

As a Sonic virgin (several crew members had visited other locations before), I wanted to sample as much of the menu as my already-terrified digestive tract would allow, so we took a good 10 minutes dissecting the data before pushing the red "order" button. Hauled out by two pleasant high-school-age girls, our bounty — $39.54 for more than enough grub for five — arrived minutes later. We immediately hopped out the Civic to assemble a murderer's row of saturated fat-laden goodness on the top of my closed trunk.

Bacon cheeseburgers. An extra-long coney — that's a footlong hot dog suffocated by chili, cheese, mustard and onions. A crispy chicken bacon ranch sandwich. A "Breakfast Toaster" (bacon/egg/cheese on Texas toast). Off their chirped-about drinks menu: One "Ocean Water" (Sprite with blue coconut syrup — tastes like the color blue) and several Cherry Limeades. Tots, both plain and buried in chili and cheese. Fries. WHAT HAD WE DONE.

The Oklahoma City-based chain's onslaught of advertising succeeded in building up a fan base for Sonic long before one even opened in PA, a toutworthy feat indeed — I know people who've embarked on hour-plus drives just to check it out. The flip side of this, of course, is that all that repetitive visual stimulation encourages inflated expectations for the eats, which are really no better or worse than any other fast-food joint. It took but a few minutes of feverish foil-ripping and too-big-bite-taking for us to determine that everything tasted like how much it cost — that's not a complaint, more like a realistic observation.

That wasn't applicable, however, to the Jr. Fritos Chili Cheese Wrap, a mess of nacho cheese, chili (same stuff from the tots and the Coney) and FRITOS shoved into a tortilla. So good. Its price tag — A DOLLAR — made it that much more glorious going down. It left an impression, too. ("That chili sonic'd my stomach," read a wistful morning-after text from one crew member.)

(drew.lazor@citypaper.net)

Sonic Drive-In | 2201 E. Butler St., 215-289-4590, sonicdrivein.com. Daily, 6 a.m.-mid. Breakfast, $1-$4.59; burgers, wraps, sandwiches, $3.19-$4.59; combos, $5.49-$6.79; limeades, slushes, etc., $1-$2.29.