Troy Smith: 1922—2009 Fast-Food Entrepreneur With a Sock-Hop Flair - By STEPHEN MILLER<http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=STEPHEN+MILLER&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND>
Troy Smith married intercom ordering with roller-skating carhops to create Sonic Corp<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=SONC>., the drive-in burger chain he founded half a century ago in Shawnee, Okla. Mr. Smith, who died Oct. 26 at the age of 87, built the business from a single outlet in a midwestern railroad hub to a national fast-food powerhouse with a retro sock-hop theme. View Full Image [image: 1029troy01] Sonic Troy Smith, founder of Sonic, in 2001 [image: 1029troy01] [image: 1029troy01] By the time Mr. Smith erected his first neon Sonic sign over a 24-bay parking lot in 1959, he already had logged a number of failed ventures in the restaurant industry with lunch counters and diners. In 1953, he opened his first drive-in almost as an afterthought -- an existing carhop restaurant stood on the same Oklahoma lot as a log cabin he had purchased to house an upscale steakhouse. Top Hat, as Mr. Smith dubbed the drive-in, served frosty-mug root beer, burgers and onion rings. Though its prices were low, it proved a bigger earner than the steakhouse. Mr. Smith closed the steakhouse, and with a partner, Charlie Pappe, opened three more Top Hats in nearby communities. At Top Hat, Mr. Smith honed the formula that would succeed at Sonic, including a streamlined kitchen, covered parking for all-weather operation and angled parking spaces so that his most loyal customers - "wild teenagers," in his words - couldn't park window-to-window. From other drive-ins, he adopted roller skates and ordering via speakers, which speeded delivery and allowed customers to stay in their cars. "The teenagers just went crazy," Mr. Smith told the Associated Press in 2003. "They liked to say 'Roger, over and out." When Mr. Smith began to sell franchises, the audio system provided him with Sonic's name as well as its slogan, "service with the speed of sound." View Full Image [image: 1029troy02] Sonic A Sonic drive-in in Shawnee, Okla., in the early 1960s [image: 1029troy02] [image: 1029troy02] "After he changed the name from Top Hat to Sonic, he was actually excited to save money on a single letter of the neon sign," says Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society and the author of a history of Sonic. "He said if you can shave a little profit off each penny, you can live off those corners." Mr. Smith sold his first franchises to entrepreneurs in nearby small towns. The chain grew slowly at first. Franchises initially cost $500, plus 1.5 cents per burger sold. Early in the chain's expansion, Mr. Smith decided to decentralize the company's management, allowing franchisees to customize their outlets according to local tastes. Menus varied widely. By the early 1970s, there were more than 100 Sonic Drive-ins in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. Thanks in part to a regional oil boom, the chain expanded to about 1,000 restaurants by the end of the decade. Mr. Smith stopped running individual restaurants in order to oversee the corporate business. But Sonic's boom came to a halt with the recession of the early 1980s, and 300 stores closed. In 1983, Mr. Smith helped usher in a new generation of management that standardize menus, upgraded restaurants and resumed expansion. Former teen heartthrob Frankie Avalon became the advertising spokesman, evoking a golden age of tailfins, surfboards and drive-ins. Sonic experienced a renaissance in the 1990s and expanded into new markets. The company grew to become the 12-largest restaurant chain in the U.S., according to Technomic Inc., a Chicago consulting firm. In 2008, Sonic had $3.8 billion in sales with 3,600 outlets in 42 states. "Sonic kind of snuck in under the radar," says Ron Paul, Technomic's president. "They've had phenomenal growth." Giving in to the expectations of today's consumers, some of its new restaurants include a drive-though window, although Sonic officials insist this is a slower way to get food than via carhop. Angled drive-in parking is still part of the mix, along with many other of Mr. Smith's innovations, including streamlined kitchen designs. But ice cream and beverages now outpace burgers as the chain's top-sellers. Mr. Smith, who became Sonic's "chairman emeritus" in 1983, remained involved in the business as an adviser and liaison with franchise owners, many of whom he had worked with for decades. In a video on Sonic's Web site conducted weeks before his death, Mr. Smith sought to reassure franchisees nervous over the economic downturn. "If people will just stay in the business and take care of it and keep putting out the burgers, it will always be there," Mr. Smith said in the video. —Email [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gimik" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/gimik?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
