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Sonic closes restaurants in in Lancaster, Reading close
Ioannis Pashakis//December 18, 2020//
Sonic Drive-In locations in Lancaster and Berks counties have closed after they were unable to secure buyers to continue operations.
Sonic restaurants in West Earl and East Lampeter townships in Lancaster County and Reading have closed permanently — affecting 22 employees in Reading and 53 in Lancaster.
Donald Welsh, a multi-unit franchisee for Sonic Drive-in, announced the closures in a series of Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
In the notices, Welsh writes that due to unforeseen challenges to normal business operations, he was forced to look for buyers for the restaurants, including Sonic locations in Fayette and Montgomery counties, and was unable to find any.
“This closing is the result of the company’s inability to secure a buyer despite its active efforts to do so to allow the restaurant to continue operating, and the subsequent sudden and unexpected failure of negotiations between the Company and its franchisor, Sonic Drive-In,” Welsh wrote in each of the six notices.
According to the notice, each each of the businesses chose not to give notice to the franchisor, Sonic Drive-In, which would have been necessary to continue operations as Sonic restaurants, because it would have harmed efforts to sell the businesses.
Because the businesses failed to provide ample notice, all six locations can no longer operate under the Sonic trademark and were forced to close without providing 60 days’ notice to their employees.
Layoffs at each of the facilities began on Tuesday.
