Steak 'n Shake — Restaurant in Batavia Township

I chose to eat at the Batavia store last night with my daughter after a school event. I had a gift card and had been a Steak and Shake regular for much of the mid-nineties. After 2010, I noticed a change in portion size and taste and have dined wit S&S less often. However, after my experience last night, I am done forever w/ Steak n' Shake. We arrived at 8:45 p.m. and were seated promptly as there were relatively few customers in the store at the time. It also appeared that in addition to our server who seated us and took our order, there were to grill cooks and a manger. We waited for. A few minutes for our server to take our order, as he was the only one on the floor and seemed to be responsible for seating, taking orders, delivering food and cashiering. The server brought my soft drink and water for my daughter, who had ordered a milk shake. Twenty-five minutes later, I caught the eye of our server and and shrugged my shoulders to communicate my confusion as other patrons who arrived later were bein served. He looked at me and said, "it's coming!" Shortly after, he came to our table and said, "I goofed and didn't put your order in, but I just did it and they will rush it, so it will be just a few minutes." About 10 minutes later, our food arrived, but no shake. My daughter reminded him of her shake order, which he said he would get. During our meal our server never returned to our table. In addition to the missing milkshake, my daughter's entree order was incorrect and since he dropped-off the check, there was no reason to return. We finished our meal sans milkshake and I strode to the counter to pay my bill and get the he'll out of the most dissatisfying dining experience I have ever had--but wait, the story's not quite over. So, now I'm standing in front of the register in full few of all of the store's employees and no one wants to take my money. Mind you I did not make any scene with my server, so it was not as I was the angry customer that no one wanted to interact with. Instead, it was pathetic indifference! I stood at register for another 10 minutes until my server approached me, now with my daughter's shake, indicating that he now had it. I said to, "why don't you take it to her (as it is now after 10:00 pm and she is in the booth fighting tiredness). He returns to check me out and I indicate that the order was wrong and I have been charged incorrectly. He says, "I have to get my manager to correct it." He retrieves the manager who says nothing to me, but makes the correction to the bill on the register. The manager or server makes no attempts to apologize for our bad experience. My server leaves me with, "have a good night!" Now, I am a patient man and never believe in humiliating anyone in service or retail occupations. In addition, I realized through my observations that many of the customers were having their own frustrations in prompt service. I don't about order accuracy, but definitely a back-up in the service. I am a Chief Human Resources Officer and understand that sometimes things can just go wrong, but this was different and truly indifference from all employees working last night. Worst experience ever! If this is the status quo at the Batavia, Illinois store, my prediction is it will not be open for much longer--too many other fast food options available. I was a loyal Steak n' Shake customer for many years, but have made Culvers my "go to" for the last decade. I had hoped that we would put S&S back in the rotation, but last night's experience confirms that all we have left is the memories from the days when Steak n' Shake was our automatic when we wanted tasty food, good service at...

My family comes here quite frequently. I do have to admit that the service isn't the best. I can see the issue with this location, it is not the staff. The short female manager is likely the problem. She is very nasty to employees and customers alike. My family has never had a pleasant experience with her and we have observed her being very nasty to her staff. The old saying "Employees do not leave their job, they leave thier manager." is quite evident here. Obviously they have a problem with staff retention. I can see why.

The staff that is there dispite her torment work very hard to the point they are getting exhausted and overwhelmed. They are running the place an a skeleton staff. One cook on the grill, one on the drink and shake station, one on the a station behind the shake are, one busser and one server. Ironically there is at least three or four workers on the drive-thru. That shows that management has their priorities wrong. The dine-in guest should be just as much as a priority as the drive-thru, unfortunately they are not. Just this past visit on January 31st, 2020. I saw many customers walk out because they were not acknowledge waiting for a seat or that the service is lacking. Just in the hour my family was there I counted at least fifteen individual groups of customers leave because of the chaos.

I do have to say, dispite the utter chaos and the lack of help the waitress Melissa does an outstanding job trying to keep the dine-in guest happy on her own. I feel bad for her because she doesn't have help at all other than the busser and occasionally someone from the back. She is so overwhelmed that she looks like she is about to cry. Honestly, I do not blame her. She is struggling to keep her job and keep her customers happy. Give her a break and please stop that manager from giving her a hard time. That short little nasty manager couldn't handle that kind of stress. Heck, that manager can't even handle a single customer at the register without an attitude and slamming things.

I think is that manager wasn't in the picture this location would be thriving. It seems everyone but that manager gets along and works very well as a team.

Please make some changes before the location fails because of...

So... there I was... AGAIN!!!... Driving around on a Late Summer's Day in August... with the temperatures in the mid 80°s... But the heat... the heat was SO HOT... that when I drove by a GROUP OF TREES... I wanted to stop... and cool off under them... But suddenly... I became SUSPICIOUS of the Trees and I did not stop... YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY...(you are going to love this answer)... BECAUSE THEY SEEMED A BIT........ * SHADY *.................. OK, OK... call off your guard dog... I will show myself out... But first let me tell you about my lunch at Steak & Shake... It Was FANTASTIC... There were lovely cooks preparing the meal... but no waitress to seat me. They have a New Kiosk to place your order. And then you can seat yourself where ever you would like to sit. They prepare everything fresh... and you can taste it... They have the 4 for $4 Special. Plus I was just in time to take advantage of the Half Price HAPPY HOUR Weekdays from 2pm to 4pm... Hey... maybe you too can pay them a visit... They have really cool music to listen to while waiting... or you can try to win some stuffed toys... But you will leave very happy and still have enough to add more gas to your gas tank to come back and...