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Sonic Drive-In to give away 3 vacations in latest marketing effortSonic Drive-In to give away 3 vacations in latest marketing effort

The Fun is on the Menu Sweepstakes is part of the restaurant chain’s Live Free Eat Sonic initiative

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 20, 2024

2 Min Read
sonic sweeptstakes
A rendering of a branded jet outside a Sonic Drive-In restaurantSonic Drive-In

Sonic Drive-In is giving away vacation packages valued at around $15,000 each to wrap up the summer.

The Fun is on the Menu Sweepstakes invites guests to visit livefreeshopsonic.com/fun99 between now and Sept. 23 to enter a chance to win one of five vacation packages curated by Tripadvisor:

The Most Fun Weekend on the Water tour is an all-expenses-paid trip for four people to Sarasota, Fla. The group will spend three nights in a “luxury villa” on Siesta Key Beach, take a glass-bottom kayak LED light tour, a guided electric bike tour, a parasailing flight, a dolphin cruse and a two-hour beach picnic.

The Most Fun in the City That Never Sleeps treats four people to three nights in New York City at a five-star hotel, where they will take a New York City mafia and local food tour, a private helicopter tour, and get tickets to a Broadway show of their choice.

The Most Fun Icy Outdoor Adventure package, centered around Anchorage, Alaska, includes three nights at a four-star hotel with scenic views, a self-guided bike tour, a day-long dog sledding trip, a gray whale watch trip, and an opportunity to hike the Matanuska Glacier.

The Most Fun R&R Retreat takes four guests to a five-star resort and spa in Sedona, Ariz., with daily wellness and exercise classes and a starlight ride through Verde Valley in the Verde Canyon.

Related:Sonic Drive-In inks sponsorship deal with the Southeastern Conference of college sports

The Most Fun at the Most Magical Amusement Park is a trip to Orlando, Fla., with two-day access to a theme park in that city, an air boat ride, a barbecue lunch, and entry into a wildlife park.

Sonic will announce three winners after the application process closes.

The sweepstakes is part of Sonic’s broader marketing initiative, Live Free Eat Sonic, which promotes the chain of more than 3,500 quick-service restaurants as a place to have great experiences.

It has included ads featuring a fictional Department of Research and Deliciousment that evokes a Wonkalike fantasy world. The launch of new menu items such as its revamped crinkle-cut fries, called Groovy Fries, and a $1.99 value menu, dubbed the Fun.99 and similar to the rash of discounted offerings that are being promoted in the quick-service segment, also have been promoted as off-the-wall offerings.

Sonic also promoted live experiences as sponsor of the X Games Ventura in June.

Sonic Drive-in is a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Inspire Brands.

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:
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