A well-known restaurant chain will open a new spot on this busy Lexington County road
Burgers, ice cream and more are headed to a high-traffic spot in West Columbia.
Sonic Drive-In, the well-known franchise that has restaurants across the U.S., is prepping a new location in the 2200 block of Airport Boulevard in West Columbia. It will be in front of the Country Inn & Suites hotel and across the street from a Shoney’s restaurant.
The coming Sonic was listed in Lexington County Planning Commission’s September meeting agenda documents, and construction had begun at the site, a reporter saw while riding by earlier this week. There is a banner hanging at the site that says a Sonic is “opening soon.” An opening date has not been publicly announced.
There are more than 3,500 Sonic restaurants in the U.S., according to data site ScrapeHero. There currently are 75 Sonic locations in South Carolina, per a store locator tool on the Sonic website, including more than a dozen in the Midlands area.
Sonic Drive-In is known for its hamburgers, corn dogs, milkshakes, breakfast sandwiches, slushes and more. The restaurants often have car hop curbside service, a nod at the nostalgic Americana of the drive-in.
The spot on Airport Boulevard where the Sonic is being built is a busy thoroughfare just west of Interstate 26. About 35,000 cars per day travel down that stretch of the boulevard, per SC Department of Transportation statistics.
