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Sonic Drive-In launches $1.99 value menuSonic Drive-In launches $1.99 value menu

The quick-service chain joins others in the segment competing on price

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 28, 2024

2 Min Read
sonic value meal
Items on Sonic Drive-In's new value menuSonic

Sonic Drive-In is joining a number of other quick-service chains in introducing value meals as consumers continue to balk at rising prices.

Sonic’s new $1.99 menu launches today, offering snacks, desserts, and entrées at that price indefinitely.

It’s also adding two new Queso Wraps at $1.99 each.

The Bacon Ranch Queso Wrap is a breaded and fried chicken tender with bacon, cheddar cheese, ranch dressing, and white queso in a flour tortilla.

The Southwest Crunch Queso Wrap is a breaded tender with a creamy “Southwest sauce,” crunchy tortilla strips, cheddar cheese, and white queso in a flour tortilla

Also on the new value menu, which Sonic has dubbed FUN.99, is a Quarter Pound Double Cheeseburger, a Chili Cheese Coney hot dog, a small order of potato tots, and any of its 16-ounce shakes.

“Now more than ever, consumers are focused on affordable food options, but they shouldn’t have to settle for the same old, tired discounts or boring meals,” Sonic chief marketing officer Ryan Dickerson said in a press release announcing the new menu. “Many restaurant brands are touting value meals and discounts, and you see a lot of recycled ideas with limited options. At Sonic, we wanted to do something different — something fun — so we focused on variety, which is why we’re introducing the new $1.99 Menu, or what we like to call the FUN.99 Menu.”

Related:The new value equation at restaurants

Calling its competitors names like old, tired, and boring is part of Sonic’s new marketing initiative, Live Free Eat Sonic, which seeks to highlight its distinctiveness, including its infinitely customizable drinks, hot dogs, tots, and other items not found at many other quick-service chains.

The new value menu comes during a time when many customers, feeling the pressures of inflation, have cut back on eating out, and restaurants, particularly quick-service chains, which often compete based on price, have seen traffic declines.

McDonald’s, Burger King, Jack in the Box, and Carl’s Jr. have all introduced value meals in recent weeks.

Sonic Drive-In is a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Inspire Brands and has more than 3,500 locations nationwide.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

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About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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