Will a Sonic Blast taste the same inside a restaurant? Baton Rouge will soon find out.
Louisiana’s largest Sonic Drive-In franchisee is developing a new, hybrid restaurant location featuring both indoor and outdoor seating as well as the chain’s signature drive-up stalls.
The new restaurant will be located on the site of the former McAlister’s Deli on Siegen Lane across from Target. Franchisee Ted Kergan signed a long-term lease for the one-acre property and its 4,000-square-foot restaurant building in March after McAlister’s abruptly shut down.
Renovations are currently underway and the new Sonic is scheduled to open in August.
The Sonic franchise that opened on Government Street in 2017 was a new concept with both indoor seating and a drive-through, but no car stalls.
The restaurant will be the 58th Louisiana location for Kergan, whose Lafayette-based company has operated Sonic restaurants for more than 30 years. It will also be Louisiana’s first hybrid Sonic.
The Oklahoma-based chain first introduced the hybrid model more than a decade ago but recently has been expanding the concept as it moves more aggressively into colder markets in the northeast.
Kergan says he wasn’t planning to bring a hybrid Sonic to Baton Rouge, which is a strong market for the chain. When the McAlister’s site became available, however, the opportunity was too good to pass up.
“The location is killer,” Kergan says. “It is at a traffic light in a highly visible area along one of the busiest commercial corridors in the market. It’s everything you could want.”
The new restaurant will have indoor seating for 60, in addition to outdoor seating,17 drive-up stalls and double drive-through windows.
