The lights and drive-up menu boards at the Ellsworth Sonic will be shining bright in the new year, with new management, new menu items, new enthusiasm and new owners. The restaurant has been closed since December 2023, but things look bright for a January return.
Kaylee Mead will be managing the location.
“We’re trying for mid-January,” she said, “but we want to make sure everything is in working order so that’s just an estimate.”
BBR Sonic, a group with 42 years of experience with the Sonic brand, purchased the Ellsworth Sonic location. The same group owns the Russell, Larned, Beloit, Concordia Sonics and many other locations in the area.
Mead came to Ellsworth from the Larned location. She’s already been in town and hard at work in the restaurant. And she’s no stranger to the new owners or the area.
Mead said she came to town and started working on-site at the end of summer.
“But we started coming up here in October and November the most,” she said. “It’s been a process. Much cleaning to do.”
This will be Mead’s first official managerial position, but that doesn’t mean she lacks managerial experience.
“I worked at Larned. I was there about six

years,” she said. “My mom was the general manager there. She’s what started me getting into Sonic.”
However, she has additional experience across the BBR Sonic group.
“I’ve gone and helped at six or seven other stores,” she said. “I’m used to figuring out what works best where.”
And Mead will be well-supported in the new store by her BBR group. The supervising owner of the Ellsworth store is Matt Fisher. He’s joined by franchisee owner Rick Bernard and owner Seth Dooling.
“In this particular location, it is a group of three. We are all under the umbrella of BBR investments, with Rick being the franchise owner on that,” Fisher said. “I have seven locations that I am partners with. Seth has five locations I think, and we have other supervisors in our group as well. We have quite a bit of business experience.
“We’re the same franchise that owns Larned, Russell, Beloit and Concordia. Those are all my stores.”
What will make a difference in the new Ellsworth Sonic?
“We are here and present,” Fisher said. “The last franchisee was based in Oklahoma, but we’re here and local and will be present. This will be my seventh store, and I go to every one of them every single week.”
And that means there will be a lot of support for Mead as she reopens the Ellsworth location. The entire group is prepared to support the start-up.
“I have 30-odd years of experience with Sonic. Her mom’s got about that too. The manager at Russell has decades of experience. The one in Beloit has 10 years,” Fisher said. “We are all pretty tight-knit. We won’t let her fail. I’ve already signed them all up. I told them we’re opening in January, and you better clear your schedules off and should all be prepared to come help.”
That extra help will avoid the sporadic closing that plagued the previous store management.
“A lot of the problem last time is they didn’t have the help,” Mead said. “They would just put the orange cones out there in the driveway and close the store. No matter how many people you have, you have to be open.”
“I’ll have people drive to town from other Sonics if needed,” Fisher said. “We’re just like everyone else — we expect service — and if you depend on our service, we need to be there. I drive to Beloit and Concordia weekly.
“For years, I drove this highway and I drove by this building and I watched it. I was like, this is too nice a location and too nice a building to be closed.
“The town is small, but if you draw a 20-mile circle around this town, there are 30-40,000 people. You’ve got Wilson, Brookville, Kanopolis and Lincoln ... There is no reason it should have ever failed.
“A lot of their struggle was they only owned two locations. We have 18 locations, and we’ll have a lot of support from those locations, especially at the start to make sure we are running well.”
Meanwhile, Mead has been getting out the word about staffing the Ellsworth location, including doing a job fair at the local high school.
“We went to a job fair at the high school. We came with job applications and a little goodie bag for the teenagers. They had a lot of questions about the store,” she said. “I don’t know a whole lot about the previous owners, but I do know some of the teenagers said they went the last two months with paychecks, and that’s not something that will happen here.”
“We own 18 locations, and someone is going to write you a check, even if Ellsworth can’t,” Fisher said.
But overall, Mead said the teens were enthusiastic.
“They are excited. They want to have somewhere to be,” she said. “In many towns, Sonic is the place to be.”
Meanwhile, customers should prepare for some new improvements at Sonic.
“There will be new signage, new menus. We’ll be getting new picnic tables outside. We’ll have whole new computer systems inside,” Mead said.
There also will be new products on the menus.
Mead said some of the new offerings will be Smashers, BLTs, Flavoristas and queso.
“We have queso now, which will be different for Sonic. It is delicious. I think the community will like the new options,” she said. “Our app always has new promotions, half-priced drinks. There will always be new promotions on them.”
The Ellsworth location continues to take applications. Send applications or inquiries to ellsworth@bbrsonics.com.