Buffalo Wild Wings Has A Fast Food Sister Chain That Might Surprise You

At a Buffalo Wild Wings location, you sit down to sip on a cold beer while smearing its many wing sauces across our faces. But the sports bar food chain has a sibling restaurant that doesn't offer a sit-down option at all. That would be Sonic Drive-In, a burger chain where you pull into a parking spot and order your meals through a speaker while staying in your car.

Both Sonic Drive-In and Buffalo Wild Wings are owned by Inspire Brands, which also owns other chains you might be familiar with, such as Baskin Robbins, Arby's, Dunkin', and Jimmy John's. It acquired Sonic in 2018 to the cool tune of $2.3 billion. Inspire Brands, in a Russian-nested-doll like structure, is backed by the private equity group Roark Capital (which launched Inspire back in 2018, back when it purchased Buffalo Wild Wings). Roark itself also owns other fast food restaurant chains, most notably Subway. Admittedly, this is somewhat confusing but not unusual, as many fast food chains are also owned by separate parent companies.

Sonic Drive-In was founded by Troy Smith in 1953, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. It was originally called Top Hat, and with the partnership of entrepreneur Charlie Pappe, he was able to expand it into three more locations before running into the unfortunate fact that "Top Hat" was already a copyrighted name. Since Top Hat's slogan at the time was "Service at the Speed of Sound," the duo cleverly renamed it into Sonic Drive-In. 

Food-wise, Sonic Drive-In still keeps that retro drive-in feel today with a menu built on burgers (which we wish were much better, unfortunately), hot dogs, onion rings, and excellent soft serve, but its slushes may be its main draw. Sonic's success in that arena keeps other fast food chains chasing after its beverage program, and has inspired other big chains like McDonald's to continue innovating. (The relatively short-lived CosMc's definitely had a Sonic-vibe going on through its drink menu.) Even though the drive-in concept might seem antiquated, it was certainly attractive enough for Inspire Brands to adopt it, and which accounts for its seemingly unlikely sister relationship with Buffalo Wild Wings.