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From Chairman's 2009 letter to StockholdersWestern Sizzlin CorporationSteak n Shake is in the process of purchasing Western Sizzlin Corp. for $23 million. This is a logical consolidation, which will expedite Steak n Shake’s morphing into a more diversified holding company. |
Steak n Shake Shows Profit in 2009Steak 'n Shake went from showing a loss in 2008 (a pretty devastating one, too) to a tidy profit in 2009, despite the recession.Mike Schafer |
Steak 'n Shake's Headquarters Moving?Rumors of Steak 'n Shake's headquarters move from Indianapolis to Texas are not true. Rather, the holding company of SnS (which I forget at the moment but it's no longer called Steak 'n Shake Inc. because it now has several other steak-related restaurants under its umbrella) may be relocated to Texas. The restaurant chain's operating headquarters will remain in Indy.Mike Schafer |
Change of ColorInteriors of Steak 'n Shake outlets are now getting the "red wall" treatment, which adds vibrancy to the surroundings. (I like it.)Mike Schafer |
Rare BoothageMember Mike Schafer got rare new boothage at a new SnS in Meadville, Pa., in 2008. It had been open only about a year when he stopped by for an evening meal in October of that year. The food and service were excellent, and talk with the manager revealed that his store was No. 2 in the system for positive customer response. Alas, it must not have meant anything. Mike returned to the Meadville store with friend Art Lemke in the fall of 2009 only to find it shuttered, de-signed, closed, kaput, with a sign on the door urging people to drive to Erie, Pa., instead. The good news, such as it is, is that member Schafer has some extremely rare boothage, almost as covetable as member Dave Ingles' Chicago Heights boothage.Mike Schafer (Editors Note: I have all 5 Memphis locations (3 closed for over 25 years) and all of MS and AR 3 stores (2 now closed)) |
Coffee ChangeSnS's ill-fated change to Seattle's Best coffee has, predictably, failed. A non-scientific questioning of SnS managers by an unnamed member of the society throughout the Midwest from Seymour, Ind., to Kansas City, Mo., revealed that customers generally were not happy with the new blend, citing a bitter aftertaste. So, Seattle's Best is now history, however return to the old, traditional blend of yore is questionable. It sorta tastes like the old blend, but not quite as flavorful. Some store managers, who shall remain unnamed to protect their job, have said that the SnS commissary is issuing the "old" blend in smaller, pre-packaged quantities. One manager told an SnS fan who complained about this to ask for a double packet of coffee brewed fresh.Mike Schafer |
Roger Ebert's Journal in Chicago Sun Times
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 New Waukesha Steak n Shake |
Mixed ReviewA visit by the Condrens and Ingles in October found the service to be extremely slow. Food was good. Mike Condren |
Mixed ReviewA visit by the Condrens, Ingles, and 2 others in January found the temperature very cold in our part of the store. When we raised the issue with management, we were told that they had little to no control over the temperature. Service was much better and food continued to be good.Mike Condren |
Current SituationEmployee (server) turnover continues to be high. Crowds seem moderate in normal meal times. Food quality and delivering what you ordered remains excellent. Temperature in the interior continues to be too cold and not fixable. Something is wrong on that front. Service has improved, but remains in the "B" range (as in A-F) overall.Dave Ingles |
Positive Experience at Broken Arrow, OKWhat can I say. The service was fast and good. The food was great. The store was packed for lunch on a Friday. When I went to pay the bill, the person on the register, I arrume the manager, read the ticket, saw that it was over $15 and headed for the box of Coke glasses while explaining the promotion. Less than a week earlier, I had to remind the clerk about the promotion at a store in Missouri.Mike Condren |
Favorite Meal(s) |
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"Steakburger" with ketchup, lettuce, tomato and pickle. If I have a platter
I usually get beans and coleslaw - sometimes the thin fries. For a drink
its either a cherry Coke or a junior shake. (Sorry no separate picture of a "Steakburger") If I get a big shake, I usually split it with my wife. I do like a Chili-mac on occasion. Breakfasts are OK - I usually get eggs over easy with bacon and toast.
Variation on the Steakburger. My favorite SnS meal harks back to my days in Sacred Central Illinois where
there was a dish served at several local restaurants in Springfield called a
Horseshoe "sandwich" (Ponyshoe for the lighter eater).
The SnS version consists of a Steakburger pattie atop a piece of toasted
bread with SnS's trademark string-like French fries placed in a horseshoe
shape around the outside. The plating then includes drizzling the sandwich
with a cheese sauce.
Unfortunately the dish is only served in Springfield and Jacksonville SnS
stores, which are historic franchisee-operated (as is Springfield, Mo.,
diff, franchisee -- this was when virtually all SnS's were corporate-owned,
before the recent explosive expansion using mostly franchisees). If your
travels ever take you to SCI, give one a try!
Grinnies |
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Double Steakburger with cheese, mustard applied (ketchup available at table)
and pickles on the side (must slice around the seeds). Platter, usually with
salad with the best honey mustard dressing in creation (I finally figured
out it's made with horseradish, no one else's is), and either beans, chili,
fries, or cottage cheese, depending on my mood, time of year, gastro
condition, and table companions. Diet Coke w/ cherry syrup. |
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Chili 5 ways with double the beef and a Vanilla MALT. The last time I was at
the new location at 124th and Burleigh Monday Feb 19th they were out of malt
and I had to settle for a Vanilla shake.not acceptable. However, I will give
them a chance to redeem themselves.
Craig Willett - Franksville, WI
Another chili lover heard from. "Last time our middle son Andy came through northern Illinois he stopped at a SnS and had to bring back (of course) chili for Alex. They have been hooked since they were little guys." |
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My favorite meal is the "only" one I eat at Steak 'n' Shake:
Chili Mac w/extra special sauce and a single steakburger w/ ketchup,
mustard, pickle & onion. Once in a while I might have my all time favorite
"Orange Freeze" in a junior size and sometimes, I might even through in an
order of fries. If I do the fries and orange freeze, I end up taking home
half of the Chili Mac. My leftover Chili Mac is breakfast the next day! Renee Fiscus 1st Steak 'n' Shake Main Street; Decatur, IL
Much has been made of the fact that I DO NOT like spaghetti, but invariably
order Chili-Mac @ SnS. An aberration of character I guess. I respond that
Chili Mac is NOT spaghetti, but then it is pointed out that the menu refers
to it as such, to which I respond "a menu misprint".
Jim Boyd, editor emeritius of Railfan & Railroad, is very well known for his love of Chili-Mac, "I lost my girlish figure to three years of Chili-Mac for lunch at the Loves Park SnS north of Rockford, Ill., while working for TV station WTVO. in the mid-1960s." At that time it was the northernmost SnS in the company.. |
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FRISCO Melt small fries and ice tea First eaten at the 1550 S. Glenstone Ave. Springfield, MO 65804 while railfanning the FRISCO. Mike Condren - Memphis, TN
If that's a small bowl of chili in the background, then you and I have the
exact same favorite: Frisco melt, fries. |
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Large Chocolate Malt, hold the cherry One might think that I am SnS's bad luck charm. They closed all three stores in Memphis about a year after I moved there in '81. They closed both of the Arkansas stores after I began stopping by. However, SnS has returned to Memphis and Arkansas, and I have "boothed" all of them already. Mike Condren - Memphis, TN |
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I like the new side by sides. Jeff Madden - Wales, WI |
No Picture Available |
I've been known in mid-summer afternoons to log new boothage in between mealtimes with an orange freeze. SnS, proving itself not immune from "ETTS," really tested my patience when it dropped the lime freeze! J. David Ingles - Waukesha, WI |
No Picture Available |
Last Saturday after the Route 66 Motor Tour got to Springfield, Carol and I
went to our usual SnS there at Stevenson Dr. and Dirksey Parkway (right off |
What is your Favorite Meal? Email the webmaster your favorite(s). |
Favorite Story |
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Galesburg, IL Story The store there, on 150 North on the northwest side, in a commercial strip south of US 34 freeway interchange, is the 2nd location in the city, and soon (or already) to close and move up by the interchange so a fast-food joint next door can use the space for more parking. The SnS is not that big, and cramped. But back in the 1960's, the G'burg SnS was on East Broad St. (??) the east-west main drag thru town, 2 or 3 blocks east of the CB&Q crossing just NE of their depot, and Wallin and I ate there a few times when we were up there 'fanning. He always got a Chili Mac, IIRC. It was the old fashioned one, I s'pose with carhops, tho don't remember them, but a long counter with a lot of stools, where we usually sat. That was the G'burg reference that got him going on getting Chili Macs but not liking spaghetti! J. David Ingles |
The other thing missing in Pittsburgh was a good restaurant that was a cut above a fast food joint and not as fancy as a fern bar restaurant. Think, oh, I don't know....Steak 'n Shake. Now I have to admit that I was not so invested in SnS that I dreamt about it coming to PIttsburgh for years. But I was nevertheless quite surprised to be driving down the road in my local mall (under construction) and see, there in the distance, a sign. As soon as I saw the sign I knew it must be right because there was a SnS that had appeared magically out of the asphalt. Once we ascertained that it wasn't a mirage, the restaurant soon became a favorite of the family. That was the first in the area. There are now four that I am aware of. I've been to three of them....one out towards the Pittsburgh airport, and another one out along PA 28 north in another new mall area. Barb has one up on me in that she's been to the one in the South Hills as well. The visit to the one on PA 28 was interesting in that it was with fellow members Ingles, Moser, and Arbuckle. We were enroute to Pittsburgh from Scranton by car (because of the rerouted AAPRCO convention train) and had just suffered a 20 minute detainment by an over aggressive member of the Pennsylvania State Police force in Dubois (pronounced Dew Boys). (Aside: why isn't it the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Police?) So a visit to a new SnS was definitely called for...and who were we to say no? Something that will puzzle me for a while is how Mr. Schafer, our esteemed President, could pass up a SnS 2-3 miles from his beloved Kennywood Park in favor the the vastly inferior Eat n Park? (Mike, I promise to stop rubbing that in....someday.) |
It was June 1994. I was attending a meeting in Austin, TX and left it a bit early to fly to STL to catch the Frisco 1522-led excursion train heading to the Atlanta NRHS convention. For completeness the routing was St. Louis to Springfield, MO to Memphis, TN to Birmingham, AL to Atlanta, GA. I was with a group of the usual suspects until Birmingham where I had to bail out to head home. (Though I can no longer imagine what was important enough for me to do that.) On the second day of the trip, as we're headed from Springfield to
Memphis, we find the train sitting at a crossing for a long time. It
was either a meet or a water stop--I believe the latter. We're on the
outskirts of Jonesboro, AK. We're also hungry, but there isn't much
to eat on the train at this point and we'll be in Memphis reasonably
soon we think. We're also lazy. None of our group gets off the train
to even stretch our legs. Had one of us done so, and gone up to the
head end, we might have noticed the (now defunct) SnS a short walk to
the right of the head end. We certainly noticed it as the train
pulled us over the crossing on its way out of town an hour plus later. |
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Actually, we realized it was nearby when we saw folks coming back on board
with lunch sacks from two or three places, including SnS, and then saw the
store, perhaps 1/3 of a mile south of the grade crossing ahead of the engine
during the service stop, as we pulled out. The folks who went for their
meals had to have left the train just as we stopped. And IIRC it was like 90
degrees and humid, this in late afternoon, and I for one wouldn't have
walked that far, for SnS or not!
The next evening in Birmingham, Chuck and I and some others went out to suburban Hoover for a Birmingham Barons Class AA minor league baseball game, and the Barons were a White Sox farm team and that was the year their right fielder was Michael Jordan (yes, the same one, for one year only!).
I have another story of an SnS that got away. I was driving back to Memphis
along the Cotton Belt with their p.r. man, Jim Johnson, after riding the
business car on a freight from St. Louis to Pine Bluff, than in the cab of a
trailing diesel the next (early) morning from Pine Bluff to Corsicana. From
there a trainmaster or someone furnished an auto, by which we returned, with
visits at Tyler and Shreveport, the UP along "The Rabbit" SP line (which all
of us still need), and I think overnighted somewhere. On to Memphis next
day, we had planes to catch (maybe a rental car this day), and Johnson,
being a native Western Illinoisan, was intent on us dining at an SnS he knew
was near the SSW yard (believe this was an IC facility, not Johnson Yard,
SSW rented space in). Anyway we got to the SnS and found it had just gone
out of business acct. it had burned out (yes, I mean a fire). And shortly
thereafter, SnS pulled out of Memphis (the first time). We were really
pissed, and not even "collecting" them yet. No time to go to another one, we
had to head for the airport directly. I think this was in the early 1980s,
would have to look up the exact year in my mileage log. |
What is your Favorite Story? Email the webmaster your favorite(s). |
New Boothage Reports |
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#76 S. Highway Drive Hwy 44; Valley Park; Eureka Valley Park, MO 63088 |
Mike and Jan Condren |
2465 North Dirksen Springfield, IL 62702 |
Mike and Jan Condren |
3247 Battlefield Road Springfield, MO 65804 |
Mike and Jan Condren |
Meadville,
Pa. (now closed, see News above) |
Mike Schafer |
501 Stonewood Drive Broken Arrow, OK 74012 |
Mike and Jan Condren |
What is your New Boothage? Email the webmaster your New Boothage Report(s). |
Special Brochures |
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I use this as my "eating guide" between Bloomington, IL and Memphis, TN. Oh yes, I have eaten in the Southaven, MS store numerous times. My wife used to work at the Southaven Branch library, about a mile away. Mike Condren |
Have a Special Brochure? Email the webmaster your Special Brochure(s). |
Steak 'n Shake Corporate Web Site |
Steak 'n Shake Lovers SocietyPresident: Mike Schafer; Vice-President: Kevin Keefe; Copy Editor: J. David Ingles; Webmaster: Mike Condren |