The last I had heard was that the Sonic folks weren’t supposed to accept tips. I got this info from an employee of ours who used to be a manager at a Sonic. I asked him this very question, and he told me that while the policy was “no tips” as they were paid minimum wage, but no one was going to hunt down employees if they got one.
I never asked him if this was a company-wide policy or if this was something local.
I have assumed this was a company-wide policy, however, I just found this article published Oct. 28, 2008:
sonic paying new carhops tip wage
So apparently they used to pay employees minimum wage (plus tips), but are now going to tip wage at some locations.
And I never knew that Sonic was a publicly traded stock (SONC).