News: Long Island Gets a SONIC
(Long Island, N.Y.) The day after Easter Sunday unveiled the first SONIC fast food chain available to Long Islanders in their own backyard. Long Islanders have long been exposed to the various commercial advertisements for the 50’s style food chain, but the joke has always been “where is there a SONIC?” Deer Park Avenue in North Babylon is the first site of many SONIC restaurants expected to be brought to the area.
North Babylon’s SONIC opened at nine in the morning this past Monday and was completely bombarded by curious and hungry Long Islanders within the first three minutes of its debut. All twenty-two drive-in stalls were filled, as were sixteen patio tables. The two outdoor patio ordering stations were occupied and a lengthy line began to form around the drive-thru.
SONIC has over 3500 restaurants throughout the country, but prior to the North Babylon addition, the closest restaurants to Long Islanders were in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. SONIC has been around for about sixty years, and opened as a hamburger/root beer stand in 1953.
Those who attended SONIC’s opening in North Babylon would agree that line was beyond intimidating, and during the wait, many updated their Facebook statuses with complaints about the nearby traffic. The stylized restaurant chain takes Long Islanders back decades, showcasing employees who ride on roller skates with food orders. Customers can get out of their vehicles and enjoy their food in a heated patio area, which is guaranteed to be comfortable in above freezing temperatures.
At least ten other restaurants are expected to appear at unannounced locations in Nassau and Suffolk County. North Babylon’s SONIC immediately attracted an estimated one hundred and fifty people who waited in line for hours. Deer Park Avenue was backed up for miles and cars parked blocks away from the opening.
Some of SONIC’s attractions include an “all day long menu” and a Happy Hour starting at two in the afternoon. They are open until midnight and two in the morning on weekends. They are known for serving a variety of specialized beverages, foot-long hotdogs, and burritos.
Reports stated that the North Babylon SONIC hired over a hundred employees prior to its opening after conducting over four hundred interviews. Applications were filled out online and in person. Hired employees practiced skating in and out of cones as part of the training process that began the third week of April.
Construction for the North Babylon SONIC allegedly began during the first week in April adjacent to the La Grande Place shopping center and Garnet Street. The creator of SONIC opened the restaurant in Shawnee, Oklahoma and named it “Top Hat Drive-In.” Six years later the name was changed to SONIC, and the first restaurant to adopt the name change in 1959 was in Stillwater, Oklahoma. That restaurant is still serving customers. One Huntington customer waited since three-thirty Sunday afternoon to be the first in line at the North Babylon SONIC.
