I'm from Texas and have eaten at Sonic a lot. They don't double as a gas station, they're just drive-in-only fast food joints. To "eat in" at Sonic, you have to pull into a parking space, each of which includes a speaker/menu setup like you find in any drive-thru lane. There's no skating involved, the employees just walk the food to you on a tray. The food consists of your typical American fast food items: burgers, chicken sandwiches and nuggets, hot dogs, fries, etc., but the main attraction of Sonic is its wide range of frozen drinks like malts, fruit slushes, shakes, and sodas with flavored syrup added. Most of the time I went to Sonic, I just wanted a shake or slush, and just got the food to accessorize. My favorite burger chain is Whataburger: great burgers and fries at reasonable prices, and, more importantly, it's open 24 hours. Same thing goes for Taco Cabana as far as faux-Mexican places go. I worked in bars last year, and I'd average 3-5 meals at each joint a week because they'd be the only late night/early morning options. Other fast food options I particularly enjoy (though not are all available to me) include Wendy's, Taco Bell, Jack in the Box (I agree with the praise for their tacos), KFC, Popeye's, Del Taco, In N Out, Chick-Fil-A, and Jason's Deli. I have to say that the very limited fast food options are one of the things that most annoys me about living in a college town. Here, they're pretty big on the whole "buy local; chains are evil!" nonsense, so the result is that the only real fast food chain we have downtown is Subway, and amusingly enough despite the mediocre sandwiches, it still offers better food, fresher ingredients, friendlier service, and more value than almost any other of the many sandwich joints in town. One last note, for anyone looking for a good list of local fast food/"greasy spoon" options, take a glance at
Hollyeats.com. The guy who writes it is a pretty knowledgeable critic who posts on egullet pretty regularly, but he's refreshingly free of the annoying snobbery that is far too common in most food experts.