Sonic boomlet: Mass. closer to getting third burger take-out stand

By adamg on Wed, 03/03/2010 - 9:29pm

The MetroWest Daily News reports a Marlborough city-council committee is urging approval of a Sonic burger stand on Rte. 20, over concerns by one councilor the stand would bring traffic to a standstill as hordes of frenzied burger buyers descend on the quiet little city from around the region.

There's already a Sonic in Peabody, with a second one being built in Wilmington.

Topics:

Dining

Free tagging:

Marlborough

hamburgers

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Comments

Good! Looking forward to trying the drive-in.

By Eighthman on Wed, 03/03/2010 - 9:51pm.

The complaint is kinda funny, because that part of Marlboro is almost ALL restaurants. There's already a 99, Wendy's, McDonald's, Boston Market, Starbucks, Longhorn, Five Guys, Panera, Papa Gino's, and several ethnic shops: I think, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese (maybe it's Thai). What's one more?!

A difference in kind

By DebGeisler on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 7:44am.

Rt. 1N in Peabody has a lot of restaurants and on-off traffic, too...but when Sonic opened last year, the traffic ramped up to pretty amazing proportions, creating Sonic jams for several weeks. Talk about screwing up an evening commute. It took a while to re-route the entrance so it wouldn't completely mess up commutes.

With luck, they'll do a better job of thinking through probable traffic patterns in Marlboro.

Sonic in Peabody has been an

By ShadyMilkMan on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 8:02am.

Sonic in Peabody has been an utter disaster because when they designed it they only left room for about 10 cars to line up at the drive through before they began flowing out into traffic. The problem is Sonic is a Drive-thru style place. When I was there last there were plenty of parking spots but people were still lined up on the highway.

If I were them I would not be too concerned. The lines in Peabody have already died down tremendously and another one is being built so there will be three in the area. Also by the time these other two are built the novelty will have worn off. Peabody has been attracting people from all over New England these other two communities will not have the same situation. Look at Krispy Kreme, there was a time when the lines at Krispy Kreme went around the buildings.

And now Krispy Kreme has completely closed their outlets.

By roadman on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 10:13am.

Give it a year, and the same will happen to Sonic.

The difference

By Will LaTulippe on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 2:07pm.

Krispy Kreme tried to sever the brand loyalty that Bostonians have for DD. Didn't work. There's no loyalty to a burger joint that closes at 10 or midnight. Sonic serves exotic items as opposed to the simple menus of McD's and BK, and is open until 2. They found a niche.

too much too soon

By Stewart on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 2:30pm.

KK also overexpanded insanely across the country in way too short a time period. Sonic's rollout has been slow and steady and hasn't over-extended the company.