Steak ‘n Shake

Dirty slow service and only 8 people in dinning room and 5 employees should not take 30 mins for eggs & bacon

This place is terrible! If I could give it negative stars, I would! I will never stop here again! The service was unbelievably slow (waited 20 minutes to get our order taken, then at least 30 more minutes to get the food). Only 1 or 2 of the employees (maybe) acted like they cared to do anything. The place was dirty & the food was not up to normal Steak & Shake standards. (I usually love Steak & Shake!)

I have been back a few times since my original post and have had better experiences. As long as you go when there isn’t a rush the experience should be good. The food is at the high end of fast food. Burgers taste like actual beef although may be a little heavily seasoned. Fries are good. Definitely order a milk shake. I haven’t had a bad shake yet although there doesn’t seem to be any coordination between the rest of the order and the shakes when they start to get overwhelmed. I’m not sure that you’ll get things like napkins or ketchup unless you ask so be sure to if you go through the drive-​thru.

Worst service ever! Don’t spend any money here. I have worked in the customer service industry for well over ten years. My first job was at McDonalds so I can relate to the employee and the customer. I have been to this location 3 times now. The time was between 2−4pm during the week for my lunch break. 1^st time I ordered a burger that was not edible since the bun was either stale or toasted and was hard as a rock. 2^nd time I ordered chicken fingers in a meal. The fries were hard and cold, the honey mustard in a cup (which I find totally disgusting) had a ton of bubbles in it and appeared watered down. The chicken fingers were tough also. Then today I think to myself… I really want a taco salad from Steak-​N-​Shake for lunch. I make the trip. I order my salad. The receipt said 2:42. I wait in line for about 5 minutes. Once I get to the window the girl is abrupt and complaining to another employee how she «is not in the mood for this» and hands me the water I requested. Then hands me my taco salad after waiting another 2 minutes at least! No — Have a good day! No here you go, come again… not one word. Then I park in the lot to eat quickly before returning to work. Once I opened my salad, I placed the extra salsa I ordered on top. The salsa looked a little unusual and seemed to be separating (Weird). But I smelled it and by this time I am running out of time. So I took one bite. The meat was hard as a rock. I kid you not! This was old burnt meat. For the amount of time I spent in drive-​thru line this should have been fresh. This was a Taco Salad!!! Needless to say I was upset. I don’t usually complain but this was absolutely garbage. I went back through the the drive-​thru. I waited at least 20 minutes. The manager or someone pretending to be asks me what’s wrong with the salad… Really? I just told the guy at the speaker. I was giving back an order I had just received in the last few minutes. I advised the young man that the meat was hard as a rock, that the quality was totally unacceptable and inedible. He then left the window… No apology. It took about 4 more minutes for him to return with the replacement and still he didn’t say a word. This is totally an unacceptable treatment of paying customers. I have an hour lunch break. I was back to work just before my time was up at 3:30. Thank goodness I have an hour lunch. I will never return. It’s not just lazy, unmannered employees. The management is totally atrocious otherwise the employees wouldn’t be this bad. Don’t go here if you have a choice. On Olive there are a million other places you can spend your hard earned money.

This is the worst steak and shake that I have ever been to in my entire life. As a matter of fact, this is the worst «restaurant» I have ever been to in my life. 3 times I have been here and waited for my food/​shakes for over TWENTY MINUTES IN THE DRIVE-​THRU (which has windows right inside the building that you can see ALL of the employees standing around doing nothing! Terrible.

I live within walking distance of this Steak N Shake. I love Steak N Shake, but you won’t catch me dead in this one. The service and overall operation is TERRIBLE. I worked as a server for 10 years and actually my first job was at a Steak N Shake. The food orders get messed up, food takes forever to finish (dine in and drive thru), and the servers barely pay attention to what’s going on with their tables. I drive all the way to the Valley to get my Steak N Shake because this location is such a pain to deal with.

I found something absolutely disgusting in my milkshake. I will never go there again!!!
Lots of employees standing around, but the service is still slow. They just don’t care and they might even be malicious.

Ballwin, Chesterfield, Dorsett — ANY location except this one. Do not spend your hard earned dollars at this Steak ‘N Shake. This location needs to have the SNS name pulled off the building. Year after year nothing improves, food quality is a health concern, and employees are not trained (and not competent enough) to handle more than ONE order at a time.
Please submit reviews, comments, and concerns via the Steak ‘N Shake website. Maybe multiple submissions to corporate will flag this location and force a review or visit from head SNS people.
It would be easier for me to tell you the good than the bad at this location. Most people I know in the area won’t return. They could increase their profit tenfold if some changes were made. Other businesses in the area are very successful. After years of low performance, questionable product, and bad service– it is time for new management… or better yet– a new owner.

Waited forever for my Frisco melt because they confused my carry-​out order with someone’s drive-​thru order. That being said, the food was delicious, and I will always have a soft spot for Steak ‘n Shake.

I have tried online ordering at this location 3 – 4 times. I have NEVER picked up a correct order. I either have to go back or deal with the wrong things. It’s a huge inconvenience to have to leave work to go back. I probably won’t use online ordering again.

This place is a mixed bag for service. They must have a hard time keeping waitresses. The food is pretty good but never anything I would go out of my way for. The great things about this place are that it is open 24 hours and that they serve breakfast and the prices are very reasonable. I love that they have a shake happy hour from 2 – 5 A.M. as well as PM.

As a post graduate, temporary, member of the restaurant industry (and admittedly all through high school and college) I have personally fell victim to the bad Unilocal review, and when I created this Unilocal account, I vowed to not ever leave a bad review as I recognize that everyone has bad days that can translate into poor customer service, and often there are many unpredictable things that take place behind the scenes that may be unavoidable to the person serving as the face of the company at the time, though for this experience it seemed necessary to lean into hypocrisy.
Last night was not only the Kentucky Derby, but also the MayPac fight and Cinco de Mayo downtown and I would like to believe that the workers are also having a morning similar to that of myself, and my friends, that would warrant a poor Sunday morning job performance, because somehow that is more forgivable than someone who is routinely is a bad employee, which I understand is a ridiculous thing to accept, but I live in a glass house.
I had many friends spend the night last night and being a good hostess at 26 years old, means picking up fast food for your hung over guests. Please bare in mind that this is essentially a statement that sums up the current state of affairs in my life at this moment. Because of the fact that I still like to pretend that I feel shame, I ordered a fried chicken salad, which tasted great and hit the spot. My friends however ordered whatever they wanted as they were not subject to ordering Steak n’ Shake for six people at 10 o’clock in the morning, and if you have never been where I was at that point this morning, trust me in knowing that a lot of life’s biggest questions are asked during the waiting period between the speaker box and the drive thru window, after having ordered 5 hamburgers, and one salad, for good measure, again, at 10am. I fell short of being a good hostess however when the round trip lasted a full 45 minutes, documented via ‘where are you’ text messages.
When the recognizably prison tattooed, drive thru attendant appeared out of seemingly nowhere, looking like he had just ingested a bad batch, I humanly felt terrible for him. No niceties were exchanged however despite my best ‘how is your day?’ efforts. By this point in my journey I had realized that my entire Sunday was booked with social activities and it was necessary for a little booster. I asked the gentleman for coffee to add to my order, which is surely an annoying customer habit, though he replied ‘ya’ and walked away. I never received the coffee, though the bill had been increased to represent the new total. After our exchange, he disappeared into the steak n’ shake abyss for 20 minutes, then returned, shoving the bag through the window with such force, that a french fry flew out of the bag and down my shirt. At this point I decided to surrender and politely paid the man and started the trek back home.
Now all of this is nothing short of rotten humanness, but the real tragedy in a paper bag occurred when I finally returned home. One of my friends had ordered their hamburger specifically without ketchup. Like hungover ravenous beasts we quickly ripped into the food, only to discover that not only was my friend’s hamburger not lacking in ketchup, the ketchup was on the outside of the bun, as if purposefully. I don’t know about you all, but if I really want to stick it to someone, my move would be far less obvious… Just hide the ketchup inside the burger man, they likely wouldn’t have noticed. I think honestly the stupidity surrounded this rude gesture, annoys me far more than the gesture itself.
I don’t want this man to get fired, or even yelled at. All I want is perhaps new management, that will retrain and reteach its employees, and perhaps run a meditation workshop, so that a customer asking for a custom order is not the moment where the career path at Steak n’ Shake is abandoned in the future.
Though I still feel guilty about leaving this review, considering that, that gentleman could being having a bad day, it seemed necessary to vent. When all is said and done, we did make the decision to have fast food before noon, for health reasons, not out of necessity’s sake. Let’s be honest, we didn’t exactly start the day expecting to win a Nobel Peace Prize, so why not?

I stopped at this SNS location as I was in the area and hungry… plus, I had gift cards to redeem. I used to stop at SNS often (other locations), but since I have discovered Freddy’s, I go there now. Looking at my gift card receipt, I hadn’t visited a SNS since August, 2014 (it’s now April, 2015).
I should have been tipped-​off that this wouldn’t have been a great experience when I got confused as to where to enter the drive thru. I have never experienced such a confusing configuration at a fast-​food restaurant. The drive thru at this location is flipped from what you’d expect. Think about it… if you’re facing a fast food restaurant, the drive thru is on the left. Not here. It’s on the right. And, once you’re in the drive thru lane, you’re in. You’re there. You’re stuck. No getting out until you suffer through the wait… which, based on my experience, and those of other Unilocalers, is typically long.
Once I finally figure out the drive thru, I pull up to the menu board and speaker. Waited a couple minutes on the car ahead of me. It’s finally my turn, so I pull up and order. The order taker needs lessons in how to communicate. Sorry, guy, but you need to speak CLEARLY and ENUNCIATE so that you can be understood. Not difficult. I ordered fries to go with my meal. Order taker guy asks if I’d like fries. Hmmm… did you *not* get that?
I spent 15 minutes in this drive thru from start to finish. The car ahead of me took forever. I thought it might have been a combination of the restaurant screwing up and the people in the car being difficult… but after reading the reviews here, I think it’s because the restaurant was slow and screwed up. The driver in the car ahead of me handed two items back to the order taker… and he came back with amended items a few minutes later. The only positive in the customer service here was that the order taker apologized for my wait. But that was it. Customer service is lackluster here.
My food was fine… I have to say that I find Steak n Shake fries bland compared to Freddy’s fries. Freddy’s seasons their fries nicely and they have an awesome flavor. I hope SNS figures out what Freddy’s is doing better… because I see them losing customers if they don’t. I think I’ll use the money on my SNS gift card on Birthday Cake shakes… can’t get those at Freddy’s (and they’re awesome!).

My childhood memories of the best «fast food» burger is forever ruined– I will probably never eat Steak ‘n Shake again. The food was horrible the service was absolutely pathetic. We were a party of 5, everything we ordered was wrong when we asked about it we got nothing but attitude. What a waste of money and calories. :(

This review is more about the lack of service than the food. We waited about 5 minutes to be seated. Once we were seated, it took about another 5 minutes for our waiter to take our order. We have been waiting almost 30 minutes for our food and it hasn’t arrived yet. I will probably not be coming back to this location. If you want Steak N Shake, find a different location to go to.

I generally like Steak ‘n Shake but this particular location is terrible.
The food is awful (cold fries, undercooked burgers, melted shakes) but the worst is the atrocious service. Expect to wait 15 minutes just to put in an order, then an eternity to get your food, even though the place is always deserted. Honestly I cannot figure out how this place stays in business.

Drive-​thru– From the time I ordered to the time I got my burger was 17 minutes with only 2 cars in the drive-​thru. How do I know? On a Tuesday & 1:43 AM, I ordered thinking it is not 2 AM to get a ½ priced shake. It was 2 AM when I finally got to the window & got my order.
I said that it was 2 AM so can you add a ½ priced shake? The price he came back with was full price added to the order. I said no, that it should be under $ 2 including tax added.
The fries were not fresh (pet peeve). The burger was OK.
I would not written this if I had not seen this as a pattern with the other reviews. I hate that this will be the closest 24 hour place next to my house & I work nights.

Without a doubt the poorest customer service that I have experienced at any restaurant on this planet. My last visit (What was I thinking!!!) resulted in a takeout order that took an ungodly amount of time sitting in the drive-​thru lane, and at the window. Then, after eventually receiving my order, every single thing in it was 100% wrong.
Ended up going inside to rectify the problem and was told that they could (1) give me my money back or (2) make my original order. I suggested option (3) Give me my money back, give me the owner’s contact information, and correctly prepare my order. Was offered either money back or the order. When I could not decipher the amount on the grease-​soaked receipt, they offered to refund me… until I mentioned that I paid in cash. Could not be done in cash. Why? Certainly would not want store credit, as the whole scenario would happen all over again. So I opted to get the order remade, because I was hungry now that it was nearing an hour later. They did prepare the second try correctly. As I waited there was a continuous parade of patrons from the dining area bringing up incorrect and undercooked orders.
I did end up with my correct order over an hour later, as well as the owner’s contact info. Naturally, that number goes to voicemail with no return calls. Will contact their HQ to have my experience noted. I know this is not rare, and the cashier noted that there had been 10 managers that have been through the place in under a year.
Unless you derive joy from playing «food roulette» and having no idea what you will have to eat after paying and receiving your order, don’t plan to visit here.
NOTE: I have not had these same problems with other locations in various states. This one seems to be the epicenter of bad business. Amazing that it hasn’t gone under… yet.

Really poor performance, Steak ‘n Shake.
Rolled in about 7pm on a weekday with 3 teenagers who wanted shakes.
The first impression was that the place was having problems with their HVAC as there was a somewhat acrid smell in the air. Kinda like when you fry a hamburger on the stove and forget to turn on the ventilation fan but more.
My second impression was that I waited at the register for a full five minutes while the staff scurried around and generally avoided the area around the register. I finally spotted a waitress within earshot of the register and summoned her. I told her that we wanted to order some shakes… and that scared her off. She didn’t take my order — she just walked away. I waited a few minutes for her to come back… she didn’t.
Next up on the hit parade was summoning the manager who was working the grill. I asked him if any of his employees would be willing to take our order. He called out to one of them (not the blonde one who had previously blown me off) and her response was that she was busy. She turned to walk away and the manager had to call her back. In between taking the orders from the girls she muttered about how she should be delivering orders to her tables instead of taking our order.
We waited another too many minutes and I asked the surly one who rang in our order if the shakes were about done. The answer was «not yet» even though a couple of them were now sitting on the counter back in the kitchen area just waiting to be given to us. I waited another couple of minutes until the were all done and left sitting before asking the blonde to hand them to me. Naturally, she tried to decline but I told her in no uncertain terms to hand me the damn shakes.
Am I done yet? Not by half but I will switch to bullet points as this review is already pretty long:
— My shake was made wrong
— One of the kids who was more polite consumed less than 25% of her shake and declared herself full
— The coup de grace… my daughter’s shake was made wrong but I was inclined to make her take it anyways as the experience had been painful enough… right up until she told me that there was also a piece of onion in it.
OH
HELL
NO!!!
Went back inside and called the manager over from the grill to talk to him. He apologized profusely and then told the woman working the shake station to make it over. I overheard her response: «it will be awhile — I have a lot of other orders in front of this.»
The manager told her to do my daughter’s immediately but it really didn’t matter as there was no recovering from the train wreck that was our attempt to get four milkshakes after an excellent dinner across the street at Kim Cheese. Spicy pork tacos = yum!!!
Almost forgot to mention… the dining room was filthy as was the kitchen area. I most certainly won’t be back to this location.

Would have been a 1 star review but the manager did try to make up for the experience so I gave them 2.
Not a good first impression. Stopped in here after dinner tonight for milkshakes with Teen 2 and her visiting friends. One of her friends is visiting from Manhattan and has not tried Steak N Shake before. Don’t think she’ll be rushing back to one after tonight.
Took about 25 minutes to get 4 milkshakes. They gave Teen 2 the wrong milkshake, but after 25 minutes she was just going to live with it. Until she sucked an onion through her straw. Yuck! She went back in and Husband asked the manager to have it remade. Its a good thing he did because he heard the shake maker tell the manager that it would be awhile before she could get to it because there were a lot ahead of her. He quickly corrected her to remake ours first, which was the right thing to do.
The shake came out correct, without onions this time. The manager gave her the larger size and a couple of free burger coupons to make up for it. Nice of him, but not sure we’ll use them anytime soon.