Steak 'n Shake
reviews and complaints

We love S&S & will continue to visit. However, the staff may need to practice on customer service. I went to use a coupon and I didn't realized t was expired(I didn't have my glasses on to see). I kept my same order. I went to pay with a gift card and it declined. I knew I had $15 And thought it would take off that amount and then I would pay the rest in cash, it declined so I paid cash 1st & then used the card for the rest and it worked. She crossed her arms & made a loud sigh waiting for me to get my cash. I know it was aggravating to her. I have been in her shoes, but it's not professional to show your disgust over something this petty. I was the only one in line at the time. I apologized and she said nothing to me and didn't look at me. Rude! I don't want anyone's job to be on the line but the Bowling Green, Ky location might want to do an overall customer service refresher course with their crew. This isn't the first time I have encounters this type of service there. Love your job or get a new one.

We walk into the restraunt. There were 3 parties ahead of us. They seat the first two. The next couple wanted a booth. So they said they would wait for one. Well we were next he just walk off from us. We waited then I had to aask someone to seat us. They did and guess what no server even stop by. After about 10 mins. I saw a server and a manager cleaning a table. So I ask them for a server. They called out to some guy that he had a table. He finally came over and took our order. My husband order a shake with extra light on the chocolate syrup. Well it wasn't. Very bad service.

On [protected] we visited the store in New Port Richey FL. When we ordered we were told the store was out of pickles, lettuce and after ordering chili were told they had no crackers.
We visit this store regularly and it seems to be going down hill.
Tables are not cleaned as they should be.
Only one employee, a young man who else name is Cameron was complaining about lack of product.
You should address this problem. We love Steak and Shake.
Thanks
Diana Regh

I'd like to start by saying I am disheartened that I actually felt compelled to search for the corporate email and select the button ‘submit a complaint'. We have always loved steak and shake in our home town and for the most part, have had excellent customer service and a wonderful dining experience. When we utilize the drive thru, our food has always been correct and fresh. Not tonight. Not even close.

My family and I pulled up to the drive thru in Marion, Indiana behind another car. No biggie, we wait in line all the time. We ordered our food and proceeded forward to the bend of the drive thru lane. There were 2 cars in front of us. It took just shy of 30 minutes for us to reach the window.

Now the disappointment begins. Because I was already frustrated with the wait, I challenged myself to be overly smiley and polite. I have been in the middle of a bad evening in food service in my past life and the last thing you need is the customers rubbing it in your face when you are doing everything you can to work hard and help. That was not the case for larger part of this group. The younger woman at the window slowly shuffled back and forth, watching her coworkers making the food as quickly as possible. The couple I could see at least. She pulled her phone out, shuffled back over to the screen to take another order and actually put her hand up to her face to block eye contact with me. We had been at the window now for almost 5 minutes. My girls were staring at their Shakes, made on the counter, just melting. She walked back over to the line to chat for another minutes or so and then finally came to take my card. I smiled, trying not to show my frustration until she handed me my card back and went to close the window. I stopped her and asked for our shakes. She happily gave them to me. A few minutes later and she handed us our bag. I checked it as I alway do and we were missing or large fry. I sat for maybe 30 seconds waiting on her to look back at us but she was leaning on the counter, facing away from us, with her phone in her hand. My husband told me to honk, which I hate to do, but I did. 3 times! Still nothing. I unbuckled my seatbelt, leaned out the window and knocked on it. She came back over and I told her what the problem was. She closed the window and I thought she was going to go grab the fries, maybe to help her coworkers. Nope. Leaning on the counter, again. I waited. 5 more minutes...

Without my fries, now almost 45 minutes from hitting your drive thru speaker, I pulled around front into the parking lot and went in.

Bustling dining room, waitresses hustling and a couple line workers hustling. Then the couple just hanging out like they are not in a rush or interested in helping the team! This is so frustrating for me to see on this new generation of workers. I asked for the manager. Manager unavailable. Ok, who is running the shop then? A gentlemen by the name of Frankie, one I saw through the drive through window. Leaning on a fridge and being asked to move twice by a line worker, explained he had the keys and was who I needed. I unloaded on that young man. Pointed out everything that was wrong with the lack of will to work together and how long myself and many other cars in the driver theu had been waiting. If the service wasn't bad enough before the missing fries, why on God's earth did I need to wait another 5 minute for those fries when the girl in the drive thru was clearly capable of grabbing h fries and putting them in a bag. Frankie when to the back and shared my frustrations and they all stood there arguing about the situation, instead of getting..my..fries. Just grab the fries. I then began to get louder about the way the place seem to be running. Please get the manager I kept saying. I heard multiple employees on the line say statements such as "this is such bull****" "I'm not putting up with this anymore" "I'm going to get him". That last one was made by an employee who walked outside and said as he walked past me, "I'm getting the manager. He's in his car." He came back in and tore his necktie off and said he quit. He couldn't deal with this anymore.

I continued to wait. Frankie brought my fries, finally, and asked if he could take my name and number. I said absolutely not, I want contact information for the manager or owner. Frankie said hold on as he walked to the back again. The fella that tore his tie off went back out side and came back in saying he still wasn't coming in. I continue to wait as the mood amongst the workers grew worse and worse. They began cussing loudly, a couple line workers said "let's get this order done and then we are outta here" A gentlemen I know in town was leaving with his wife and approached me, asking if everything was ok. I stated I better calm down as he is a police officer. He said if it was any concelation, their food was terrible.

It became very evident to me that if someone tried to get the manager and he refused to come in with what was going on and the staff reacting and behaving the way they were, I wasn't going to get anywhere with him. Frankie never came back to the counter after her gave me the fries.

Let me be clear, we have always enjoyed Steak and Shake but the lack of motivation in most of those team members and obviously with the management has absolutely changed my mind. I have never, ever been through a drive thru experience with such a non-interested worker. Seeing her not even try to help and play on her phone was just plain Inexcusable. If they were that behind, cars waiting in line for 30 minutes, everyone that even knew anything about making food or bagging it up should have been doing that. No just leaning on walls, chatting and playing on their phone.

I cannot promise that we will ever return to this steak and shake. This was by far, the worst experience I have ever had at a drive thru. This was simply unbelieveable.

On December 3 around 6:00pm my family (a total of 5, 3 adults and 2 children) decided to visit your location in Snellville Ga, off of Scenic Hwy 124. You could say as soon as we opened the door our bad experience started. We waited to be greeted by an employee, we were looked at by many of the staff but never greeted. About 5 minutes later I saw that there was a list on the "host" stand with nobody there to put our name down I wrote it on the list. 10 minutes later we were finally seated. Our server said that he will be right with us to get our drink order, knowing that we waited 15 minutes to be sat I decided to start my timer. It took over 4 minutes for him to com back and get our drink order, thankfully we also knew what we wanted to eat so we placed our food order in too 5 meals for dine in and 1 for take out. 6minutes later we received our drinks and asked about our order. The server said he was going to check on it. 20 minites later he came back with our order. In that 20 minutes all the drinks at the table had been emptied and not refilled nor had anyone checked in on us. Upon receiving the food 2 orders were wrong and all of the burgers were over cooked and dry. When I saw the manager on duty (she said her name was Sahanna, older white lady withd short-mid length hair). She was extremely rude during our discussion and was putting blame on everyone else. Towards the end of the discussion she rudely said she will take care of our meal and snatched the check out of my wife's hand and walked off mumbling under her breath. My wife and I have been coming to this location for over 7 years, we know the service is sub par at best but this was just completely unacceptable. And the attitude received from the manager was disrespectful for any circumstance let alone a customer service based establishment.

My boyfriend and I walked into this Steak ‘n Shake (never been there before) and waited to be seated. There was nobody else waiting and it still took about 10 minutes until the manager (?) walked up to us and told us we couldn't be served because her staff said we would "leave without paying". Like I said, neither of us had ever been there before. We even asked if we could pay before eating because we were so hungry and she said no. Completely offended.

I ordered a single burger and had asked for the Cajun seasoning to be added INTO the burger.
However, when I got the burger it was smothered all over the top bun and the wrapper. I'm really confused on how someone could mess this order up. It made the bun soggy and unenjoyable bc it was soaked in seasoning in one area.
I want an explanation/refund.

I'm a true steak and shake fan, my favorite is the old store in Daytona beach, that was until recently, I stopped at steak and skake in Ocala on my way to atlanta, service was terrible, it was about 330pm I was sat down as a single person at a 4 top table, it only took 15 minutes to have a waitress take my order, a patty melt for me, and a patty only for my dog in the car, the restaurant was at 50-60% full it's only took another 19 minutes to get my order minus the plain patty the wait at that point said I thought you were kidding and did not place the order, so I ask again for a patty only to be ready when I leave, ate my burger and waited about 15 more minutes to get the patty only and the bill, and was charged 3.89 for the patty, I shut my mouth and did not make a scene, Said it's a one time issue, so tonight my don daughter in law and grand kids said let's go to steak and shake I took a breath and said ok, and here we go again it's 7:14 it's at 60% capacity counting table tops with 9 open 4 tops it's took 16 minutes to get seated and once seated 12 minutes to place a drink order and at 31 minutes no sight of food, this is amazing, from my favorite fast food burger joint, I can't take much more

I went to the drive thru on Gunbarrell Rd in Chattanooga TN. The person was very rude when I ordered. I waited 10 minutes when I got to the window, my burger was cold, the cheese wasn't melted and the fries were cold. The guy at the window closed the window while I was talking to him regarding my order. He Was rude and there were several other cars that appear to having issues

Where to begin? Pulled up to the restaurant, parking lot was strewn with garbage (Actually stepped on some food that was lying on the ground when getting out of my truck.) Walked in the location on 13th Street in Gainesville, FL at 10:00am and was told breakfast wasn't available? Opened menu and it was wet and slimy on the inside. Ordered burger, fries and soup. Girlfriend ordered burger, fries and diet coke. Received regular coke. No napkins on table. No ketchup. No soup. Was told that soup needs to "warm up". After completing meal, Still never received soup. When I let the manager know what was happening, he told me that since it was the $4 meal, I shouldn't worry about it because it was free anyway?
Management should be fired. I will never eat at this location again

Where do you even begin?... Smyrna, Tennessee
I liked making milk shakes, it was fun :) ...However, there was some sort of breakdown in the process...Food was taking wayyy too long to get out, a lot of it was cold and some of it was not coked properly. The Grand Opening brought plenty of customers but by week 2-3, it had slowed considerably down. No return customers and probably a bit of word of mouth ( have no fear, if you tell the truth on their facebook page, they will delete you and your comment)...they staff did work well as a team and some of the younger workers had attitude problems, which varied from lazy to angry, but all were petty! Two workers name tags just TEE(lead)(literally said she didn't care if I was diabetic, I still had to pay for a shake..can you say lawsuit?) & the other said just "T" ! That is not ok! you aren't hanging with your buds, you're at work, be professional!
Best part is I wasn't clocked in on the computer the first day which resulted in 7.5 hours going unpaid, because the overzealous former Correction Officer Manager wouldn't return my calls or texts. Pay Day comes and I just want to get this whole fiasco over with. I arrive at 12:30. Can't get your check until 2pm, ok.. I order a small fry because I'm broke from not getting paid and waited it out because not only was my car on empty but was also some sort sensor problem and just dies with no warning and was starting to refuse to restart. I was there maybe 15-20 mins and a guy who looked militaryish sat down near me at a long bar. No biggy, until he reveals he is a ...(guess) a correction officer at our local detention center..still, ok, didn't think much of it...until, the city police showed up. Now, I have been sitting there quietly unless spoken to, reading a booklet I got a the church while picking up food at the food bank...because...guess?..I didn't get PAID!
He didn't order food and was checking in with the staff... that never happened on any of my shifts, so wasn't a "routine" check...finally after I got home I thought...? Did they crazy women call the cops on me?
Who knows, but from the looks of this thread, this company obviously doesn't care any more than their employees.