Inside a Deserted Sonic Drive-In (Now Demolished), Flint
A former Sonic Drive-in restaurant once sat empty in Flint.
Sonic's lease at 3140 Miller Road ended at the end of 2022, and a Chick-fil-A is taking its place.
Sonic Drive-ins were founded by Troy N. Smith, Sr. in 1953.
After serving in WWII, Troy returned to civilian life as a milkman in his hometown of Seminole, Oklahoma. Tired of lugging around all those heavy crates of milk bottles, he decided to switch to a product that was a little lighter: bread.
With the money he made, Troy bought a little diner, eventually sold it, and used that money to open a fast-food place called Troy's Pan Full of Chicken. It was in 1953 when he and a partner bought land that contained a little log root beer stand and a log house. They kept the stand as-is but turned the cabin into a steak house. Even so, the root beer stand was making more money than the restaurant, so Troy bought out his partner and focused on the stand.
He added speakers for ordering, and the carhops would roll out on their skates for delivery. Called the Top Hat Drive-In, it actually began as a “walk-up”, not a drive-in. The original name ‘Top Hat’ was changed to ‘Sonic’ in 1959 and continued with the slogan "Service with the Speed of Sound".
Sonic is famous for their car hops delivering food to your vehicle while on roller skates and even has yearly competitions to see which are the best-skating hops. But that doesn’t happen at 3140 Miller Road in Flint anymore. It was flattened and turned to dust. But that didn’t stop someone from getting a few shots inside & out of this empty Sonic. Take a look at the gallery below...
Abandoned Sonic Restaurant (Before Demolition), Flint
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