Sonic Drive-In
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40 free Sonic Drive-In trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Sonic Drive-In started in the 1950s as a single roadside stand run by a former delivery driver, and grew into the largest drive-in restaurant chain in the United States. Along the way it kept the things most rivals dropped: stalls where you order from your car, servers who bring the tray to your window, and a drinks menu with more combinations than anyone could try. This quiz covers the whole story: founder Troy Smith and his early partners, how the chain got its name, the menu items regulars love, the commercials and spokespeople that made it famous, its ventures into motorsport, and the corporate deals that changed its ownership. It is written for Sonic fans, fast-food history buffs and anyone building a trivia night round. The opening questions are friendly to casual players, the later ones reward people who know their drive-in lore, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01Carhops at some Sonic Drive-In locations are famous for delivering food to parked cars on what?
Roller skates
Roller skates are a Sonic trademark, and the chain holds an annual competition to crown its best skating carhop. Winners have gone home with custom skates and cash prizes.
Q 02Sonic became an associate sponsor of which NASCAR legend's car just before his fatal Daytona crash?
Dale Earnhardt
Dale Earnhardt was due to carry Sonic's logo through the 2001 season. After his death in that year's Daytona 500, the company stayed on with his replacement, Kevin Harvick, through 2003.
Q 03On which 2003 reality series did Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie work a shift at a Sonic in Arkansas?
The Simple Life
The Simple Life sent the two heiresses, who had never held a job, to work at the Sonic in Altus, Arkansas. The episode brought the chain a burst of national attention.
Q 04Which small free extra has come with Sonic orders since Troy Smith's first drive-in in the 1950s?
A mint
A mint goes out with every order, a tradition Smith began as a pun to tell customers what they were worth. Sonic gives away enough each year to climb the Empire State Building and back 5,000 times.
Q 05Which singing idol of the late 1950s starred in Sonic's television commercials from 1987 to 1993?
Frankie Avalon
Frankie Avalon became so tied to the chain that a 1995 survey found the public linked Sonic with him more strongly than with any of its food.
Q 06Sonic Drive-In began in 1953 as a small-town stand in which state, still home to its headquarters?
Oklahoma
Oklahoma has been Sonic's home from the start, and by the chain's 50th anniversary in 2003 every town in the state with more than 4,000 people had a drive-in.
Q 07Since a 2018 takeover, Sonic has shared a parent company with which other restaurant chain?
Arby's
Arby's and Sonic became corporate siblings when the roast beef chain's Atlanta-based owner bought the drive-in company for $2.3 billion.
Q 08Which drink was the main draw at the walk-up stand Troy Smith turned into the first Sonic?
Root beer
Root beer, hamburgers and hot dogs were bringing in about $700 a week at the stand, enough to convince Smith it was the better business to back.
Q 09Sonic's chili-and-cheese-topped hot dog takes its name from which New York City seaside neighbourhood?
Coney Island
Coney Island gives the Chili Cheese Coney its name, although that style of sauce-topped hot dog is most popular in the Midwest, especially Michigan.
Q 10Before it was renamed Sonic in 1959, Troy Smith's original drive-in traded under which name?
Top Hat
Top Hat was the walk-up stand Smith took over in 1953, where customers parked anywhere on a gravel lot and walked up to place their orders.
Q 11Before founding Sonic, Troy Smith delivered which product, later switching to bread because it weighed less?
Milk
Milk was Smith's first delivery load when he came home from the Second World War. Soon afterwards he bought a small diner, his first step into the restaurant trade.
Q 12Tater tots, a Sonic menu staple, were invented in 1953 by the founders of which frozen-food company?
Ore-Ida
Ore-Ida's founders created the tot in the very year Sonic's story began, as a way to use up leftover slivers of cut potato that would otherwise have been thrown away.
Q 13Which state got its first Sonic Drive-In in 2019, when a location opened in the town of Wasilla?
Alaska
Alaska got its first Sonic when the Wasilla drive-in opened in August 2019, years after the chain first planned to reach the state.
Q 21Sonic's first franchise owners paid Troy Smith a royalty of one penny on each of which supplies?
Sandwich bags
Sandwich bags carrying the Sonic label cost franchisees an extra penny each, collected through the paper supplier. Those early contracts set no menu or advertising rules at all.
Q 22Sonic's first franchise deal, struck with Charles Pappe for Woodward in 1956, was sealed by what?
A handshake
A handshake was all it took, and for years afterwards the partners ran their growing business largely on trust rather than detailed contracts.
Q 23Which college town's drive-in was the first to display a Sonic sign after the 1959 name change?
Stillwater
Q 14Sonic's 1950s drive-in image got a boost in the late 1970s from the popularity of which film?
Grease
Grease fed a wave of nostalgia for carhops, burgers and shakes, and Sonic leaned into it through the next decade with a 1950s-themed advertising campaign.
Q 15In 2010 Sonic reformulated which menu item so it met the FDA's official definition of the real thing?
Ice cream
Ice cream at Sonic had been a soft serve that did not meet the federal standard of identity. The new recipe launched in May 2010 under the name Real Ice Cream.
Q 16Sonic Beach, a 2011 spin-off with outdoor seating and alcohol on the menu, launched in which state?
Florida
Florida got the first Sonic Beach in Homestead, followed by a Fort Lauderdale site so close to the sand that it had no drive-in stalls at all.
Q 17Before Sonic, Troy Smith ran a short-lived restaurant whose name promised a pan full of which food?
Chicken
Chicken was the speciality at Troy's Pan Full of Chicken, which Smith opened after selling a tiny diner with just four booths and twelve counter seats.
Q 18Why did Troy Smith and Charles Pappe have to rename their four drive-ins as Sonic in 1959?
The name was already taken
The name was already taken by another business, which stopped the partners expanding. They needed a replacement that still suited their existing motto.
Q 19To wire the first ordering speakers at the future Sonic, Troy Smith hired installers of which machines?
Jukeboxes
Jukeboxes were what the local men Smith called in normally installed, and the speakers they rigged across his parking lot sent sales soaring almost at once.
Q 20To plan the parking at his drive-in, Sonic founder Troy Smith borrowed cars from a friend who ran what?
A used-car lot
A used-car lot supplied the vehicles Smith used as stand-ins while he worked out a layout. Until then customers had simply parked wherever they liked on the gravel.
Stillwater's drive-in was one of the first four in the chain, and in 1959 it became the first to trade under the Sonic name.
Q 24Troy Smith's stand that grew into Sonic stood in which town, later home to the chain's 3,000th drive-in?
Shawnee
Shawnee is where Smith opened his first diner, the Cottage Cafe, in 1948 and took on the walk-up stand five years later.
Q 25T. J. Jagodowski and Peter Grosz, the Two Guys of Sonic's commercials, came from which performing background?
Improv comedy
Improv comedy shaped the ads, which the pair largely made up as they went. Jagodowski performed with The Second City in Chicago, and Grosz played the straight man.
Q 26Which Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star joined castmate Jane Krakowski in Sonic's 2018 Two Gals commercials?
Ellie Kemper
Ellie Kemper and Krakowski were cast as a counterpart to the chain's long-running Two Guys ads, which had made their two male stars familiar faces to American television viewers.
Q 27Which Atlanta-based group, already owner of Buffalo Wild Wings, bought Sonic for $2.3 billion in 2018?
Inspire Brands
Inspire Brands had been formed only months earlier, and it went on to add Jimmy John's and Dunkin' to the same stable.
Q 28Sonic's Limeades for Learning programme funds classroom requests through which teacher crowdfunding charity?
DonorsChoose
DonorsChoose lists supplies that public school teachers ask for. When the programme began in 2009, Sonic customers voted each autumn on which requests got the chain's money.
Q 29Sonic's Pickle-O's, first sold in 1968 and revived for its 50th anniversary, are pickle slices cooked how?
Deep-fried
Deep-fried pickle slices began as a regional item, served at drive-ins in the chain's home state in the years before Sonic had a standard menu.
Q 30What is the name of the Sonic kids' meal introduced in 1997 with a rotating collectible toy?
Wacky Pack
Wacky Pack meals arrived during a 1990s overhaul that also gave Sonic its yellow, blue and red logo and a consistent menu.