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07 March 2007
Why did I just see a commercial on TV for Jack in the Box, when the closest location is almost 600 miles away from NJ in NC? Sort of a waste of their advertising budget, no?
Was it on a cable or satellite network? Sometimes they just buy ads wholesale. For outlets that have a relatively large (but not universal) nationwide presence, it's cheaper than targeting local markets.
I sometimes see the spanish versions of jack in the box ads on (english) cable tv. At first I thought it was some clever marketing campaign but I'm pretty sure they just play the wrong commercials.
and btw, sonic is pretty good. I don't know if it's disgusting enough for you or not but they have good chili dogs.
Sonic is about as good as you'd expect. There's a wide selection of drinks and shakes and whatnot, and they strongly encourage adding shots of flavor syrup and whatnot. They put onion rings on top of their salads, too, which seems like something that you'd like, if, y'know, you ever ordered a salad.
Yeah the closest one to me is just under 800 miles away. I always wondered that myself.
Same thing with Sonic. According to their store locater, there isn't a Sonic within 150 miles of my house.
Red Lobster? 96 miles away from my house.
There's like one Checkers in Patterson, NJ. It's in a tiny, almost impossible to navigate drive-thru about twice the size of a 24-hr photobooth. I don't know of any other Checkers north of say, Georgia.
I like Sonic when I'm down south. And I'm not much of a fast-food eater.
That's my guess, then. It's a lot cheaper for them to buy a national prime time ad and have it run even in places where they don't have a presence (thereby building brand recognition in the event that they DO move in, or in the event that you travel west) than to buy 600 local ads in different markets.
Those Sonic ads torture us. "What can't we have now? Fried cheesecake bites with strawberry dipping sauce?!?!? Curse you, Sonic!"
There's one out near Lancaster, about 2 hours away. We're trying to come up with a reason to travel out that way. Dutch Wonderland, maybe. Or Hershey Park.
I went to college out that way, box. We used to get very, very high and go on the Chocolate World tour. Then you have to exit through the big chocolate store. It was so very awesome...
The best thing at Sonic is the Orange Slush. Not too sweet, not too orange, a little bit creamy good. Mmmmm. And fortunately for me, there's a Sonic 1.1 miles from my house, on the way to the beach! So I get one or two Orange Slushes a week!
Less often, I head to the Third Street Diner over in Jacksonville Beach, where they still make a killer egg cream.
Yeah, Sonic is good. They have jalapenos you can put on your cheeseburger, which makes me happy, but they retired the Island Burger, which is too bad, since it had bacon AND jalapenos AND cheese AND some peculiar sauce and I liked it very much. Also, the last time we were at Sonic we noticed that they're selling a drink called Ocean Water and so now we have to go back and order one to see if it is, in fact, ocean water. Mmmmm, salty! Plus, at Sonic you can drive up and sit there and order from the little screen thing at every space and even use your plastic to pay right there and sometimes, if you are lucky, the waitron will come out on roller skates.
In other news, we don't have Jack in the Box - I thought they were just out west - and the last Checkers burned down & went away a couple of years ago. There used to be Checkers in inner city Baltimore and they were pretty good but then one day they all mysteriously became some horrible Burger King hybrid, like they really were Burger King but smaller and nastier and called something atrocious like Urban Experience Burger King, Yo! That didn't last long.
Y'all are making me miss Sonic enough to consider a roadtrip down South. Not that it takes much to make me consider such a trip to explore my Mississippi roots and Louisiana tendrils. Fried dill pickle rounds, check. Abita Amber, check. And, of course, le Sonic.
PS. I could never figure out about the tipping thing.
I usually tip a little. Maybe a buck if it is miserable outside and/or I have a fairly large order. If I just stop for a cherry lime aid in the middle of summer, they can keep the bit of change out of the three bucks I give them and be happy with it.
Sonic's fine for fast-food fare, uh...frankly. Better by far than McDonald's or Burger King or the shit they fry at Jack in the Box *shudder*. They have tater tots, which I prefer over french fries any day, but if worse comes to worst and I give in to a craving, I'd much rather indulge myself at Keller's Drive-In (classic, old-school, still plenty of meetups with classic car drivers, plus you can get beer there).
Shoney's has a pretty bad name in my memory. I never cared for it anyhow. Still better than the shitbuffet (pronounced best with a hard 't' at the end) that is Golden Corral. When my grandfather was still alive, we spent his last birthday there, at his request. I refused to touch any of the meat, but made the mistake of getting a small spoonful of the green beans.
I know that, traditionally, southern cooks use pork and porkfat when they make their veggies. However, I've a very strong aversion to canned vegetables. That shit was like a sinewy, fibrous mouthful of very salty bacon flavored bubble gum. I almost did a spit-take into my wheelchair bound grandfather's face.
One of the great things about storm chasing in Oklahoma and surrounding states is you a) end up eating a lot of fast food and b) none of it is available in Canada. Most unexpected menu item? DQ sells catfish in Texas.
Sonic is cooked-to-order fast food, and it's the only place I've ever eaten at in South Carolina that can approximate a Frito pie, although I think they called it chili pie instead. The breakfast burrito is a little on the skimpy side for me, but with an apple and a banana I already brought, it's just about right.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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