Six Utah County Sonics sold
New owners plan $4.05M retrofit of all 27 Sonic stores in Utah Neighborhood Sonic LLC is now the sole franchise owner of all 27 Sonic stores in Utah, after it completed the acquisition of six Sonic stores in Utah County last week, company officials announced today.
Owned by Greg Maples and Rick Timmons, Neighborhood Sonic of South Jordan, which already owns 21 Sonic franchise stores in the Salt Lake City County area, bought six remaining Sonic franchise stores in Utah County from Simonsen Nagle Robinson LLC of Provo last week. Companywide, Neighborhood Sonic now has a total of about 800 workers in Utah.
Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed. But company officials said all six Sonic stores in Orem, Pleasant Grove, Springville, American Fork, Spanish Fork and Provo have retained their entire work force, which ranges between 175 and 300.
“It’s a great time for us to sell while the commercial real estate market in Utah is still hot,” said Mark Simonsen, one of three co-owners of the Provo franchisee.
“I entered into this venture as an investor in 2001 when we opened the second Sonic in the state in Orem. But over time, it became necessary for me to play a more active role. My background is in computer science and I’ve plans to go back to the high-tech arena. My other two partners, Thomas Nagle and Dr. Ross Robinson, also have their own jobs and interests,” Simonsen said. Simonsen was former chief executive of Provo Internet job board Flipdog.com, which was sold to Monster in 2002.
Maples said all 27 Sonic stores are scheduled to undergo a $4.05 million retrofit in the middle of next year. It would cost between $125,000 and $150,000 to retrofit each store, he said.
“The Sonic stores will have a new look that includes a Starbucks cafe-style ambience,” he said. “We’ll be changing the siding of the buildings, adding new lighting, new barrel canopies over the outdoor patio. We’ll be redoing the inside dining areas of the restaurants, adding counters and registers to accommodate face-to-face ordering.”
Maples plans to spend between $20,000 and $25,000 to install PAYS, or Pay At Your Stall readers at 21 stores in Utah including the six Utah County Sonics by the end of March. The readers will enable customers to pay for their purchases by swiping their debit or credit cards at individual stalls of the drive-in.