While accidentally dumping ranch mix into a milkshake machine probably wouldn’t be considered a “happy little accident” for business, for one former Sonic worker in New Mexico, it somehow was. Reddit user ABQmechanic claims they worked at Sonic years ago but came clean about a questionable mistake their team made during one night shift. “Someone had put ranch into the machine instead of the milkshake mix,” they recalled.
ABQmechanic clarified that this wasn’t just a smidgen of mix that got into the machine either. “We had apparently been making and serving ranch milkshakes for the entire night,” they claimed. Now, mistakes happen all the time in kitchen settings, but it was the customers’ reactions that were so surprising to OP and their co-workers.
No Customer Allegedly Had Issue with the Ranch-Flavored Milkshakes from Sonic
“Nobody complained. Not one person came back. Nobody called. Nobody said their Oreo shake tasted like ranch. Nothing,” said ABQmechanic. Those on shift allegedly confessed to the general manager of what happened, and all he said was, “Wow, they must’ve liked the ranch shakes!” To this day, OP now wonders whether there were people who drank through an entire milkshake of ranch and simply accepted it as how it was supposed to taste.
Of course, several Redditors were skeptical that this could have even happened. ABQmechanic clarified that they weren’t the one who did it. However, they did say they helped stock the fridge and remember that the ranch and milkshake mix came in large, clear bulk bags of liquid that were stored on the same shelf. “I’m guessing somebody up front just grabbed the wrong bag and poured it into the empty machine,” was their assumption of what occurred.
Someone asked whether ABQmechanic tried the shakes for themself, to which they replied that they did not, as they find ranch flavor disgusting. However, another employee did and claimed it wasn’t too bad.
“An accidental new menu item was created, there’s customers going to other locations demanding the ranch milkshake because they had it before,” remarked a commenter. Multiple people chimed in, sharing their stories of receiving “the wrong food” at a restaurant, only to wistfully realize they liked it, but that it also wasn’t a thing on the menu. In this story, perhaps those who tasted the mistake shakes also feel the same; as OP put it, “Somewhere out there is a guy still pissed that Sonic discontinued the ranch shake.”
