NEW YORK - Troy N. Smith Sr., who turned ordering fast food by speaking into a microphone from a parked car into a national habit, died Monday in Oklahoma City. He was 87.
His death was announced by the
Fresh out of the US military, Mr. Smith turned somebody else’s trifle of an idea into an enterprise. One day, while driving along the Texas-Louisiana border, he grew giddy at the sight of a fast-food joint with a car-to-kitchen intercom. He asked the owners for a replica of the audio system, and he soon made it the centerpiece of his root beer stand in Shawnee, Okla.
Families, delighted by both the efficiency and absurdity of using a tiny microphone to order food and milkshakes, flocked to the Sonic drive-ins. By the late 1970s, Mr. Smith was operating one of the most successful fast-food chains in the United States; from 1977 to 1978, he broke ground on an average of one location a day, mostly concentrated in the South. Today, the company operates nearly 3,600 locations in 42 states.
Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society and the author of “Sonic: The History of America’s Drive-in,’’ said Mr. Smith’s business model flourished because it came just as Americans began to embrace car culture and recreational eating. “He defined what it means to be an entrepreneur,’’ Blackburn said.
Troy Nuel Smith Sr. was born in Seminole, Okla. He grew up in the oil patches of east central Oklahoma and in 1943 joined the US Army Air Forces. When the war ended, he began work as a milk truck driver.
Mr. Smith found that he did not like to be ordered around, and he turned his entrepreneurial spirit toward food, opening several restaurants in Shawnee.
But it was the Top Hat, a root beer stand that he opened in 1953, that became Mr. Smith’s most lucrative endeavor. He abandoned the other businesses and capitalized on the growing popularity of drive-in restaurants.