[blueplum]

Publically traded Sonic is now privately owned by the same folks who own Arbys and Buffalo Wild Wings - Inspire Brands, a venture of Atlanta-based Roark Capital Group. It makes sense they would close aged building/poor performers that publically-held Sonic kept open to bolster their asking price.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arbys-owner-inspire-brands-acquires-sonic-drive-in-hamburger-chain-for-2-3-billion/

[pepsionice]

Back in the 1990s, Sonic had a great performance on stock. Instead of a dividend, they had continual stock splits (like every two years....a 3 for 2 deal). Then you look around 2007...the bottom fell out of the stock. No splits, no dividends.

If you had a small town of 2,000 people and no real competition, then a franchise made sense, and probably had a good return on investment. In the towns of 100,000 or more....they had too much competition.