Steak 'n Shake — Restaurant in Fort Myers

As a frequent visitor to the Fowler Street location in Fort Myers, where the service is consistently excellent, food is made right, and facilities are well-maintained, I was excited to try the Colonial Center Drive spot (#589, 8950 Colonial Center Drive). Unfortunately, our visit on July 26, 2025, around 2:45 PM (ticket #145) was a complete disaster that fell far short of Steak 'n Shake standards.

It started in the bathroom: the water faucet wouldn't turn on, and the paper towel dispenser was broken—my partner couldn't wash hands or dry them properly. When we mentioned it later, the manager went in herself, emerged with wet hands, and insisted "it works," making a big scene. We have no idea what she did, as it was completely unresponsive just moments before. This felt dismissive and odd.

We ordered via the kiosk: iced teas and customized burgers (mine with no lettuce or tomato). The teas were nowhere to be found—no dispensers stocked, no explanation. Then my burger arrived with the exact toppings I excluded. Frustrated by these three issues in a row, I politely asked for a manager at the counter.

Instead, a kitchen staff member approached—a short, heavyset Caucasian man with tattoos and piercings. He immediately accused me of being rude, denied making the burger wrong ("I don't make burgers wrong"), and only admitted the error after I showed the receipt. His "solution"? Snidely tell me to "just take the lettuce and tomato off" myself. He excused everything by saying they were "busy" (there were maybe 10 people in the restaurant and no drive-thru line) and he'd "just got there." The attitude was shockingly unprofessional.

The actual manager (I believe named Marie) came out and was more attentive, though she talked over us a lot while the staffer hovered nearby, making it awkward. She asked him to fix the burger; he returned in under 10 seconds with a "corrected" one—highly suspect given the speed. As he handed it over, he sarcastically said, "Have a great day," which sealed our discomfort. We no longer trusted the food handling, so we declined remakes and requested a full refund.

We sat waiting for several minutes with no follow-up, so we started to leave. The manager then rushed to the door, asking us to come back, and finally processed the refund—which we appreciated, but the whole ordeal was avoidable with better training and courtesy.

This experience was so bad it overshadowed our loyalty to the brand. I've reached out to Steak 'n Shake corporate twice via their website and once on X, but received no response despite over a month passing. I wanted to keep my complaint private, but apparently that's asking too much, so I'm sharing publicly now. I hope you investigate and improve staff interactions and maintenance at this location—Steak 'n Shake can do better, as proven at Fowler Street. We want to keep...

I'm not usually one to write restaurant reviews, but my experience at this restaurant on 12/27/2023 really rubbed me the wrong way so here we are. I placed an online order for pickup around lunch time for myself and my coworker. I mistakenly placed it to this location, I usually go to the one on fowler and have never had any issues there. That being said the mistake was mine so I drove to the colonial center store, took me about 25 minutes to get over there. I found that there were no pickup orders ready, but one of the cooks asked if i was picking up an order and I said yes, he asked if it was and order for (my name) I said yes thinking all would be well and that they had my order working. While I was still waiting I could hear a lot of yelling in the back of house which I thought was odd for how slow and quiet the restaurant was. after a few more minutes I was handed a large, sealed, plastic bag with the paper bag and drink holder in it. I could tell the bag was light but I thought I was just missing a drink so I asked if I could have the coke and be on with my day. After I got the coke I thought I should check the rest of the order because I did not want to have to drive back out in case I was missing anything else. I opened the sealed bag to find that the ticket (which was not visible from outside of the bag) had somebody else's name on it. I got the attention of one of the staff and apologized as I had opened the order and it was not my food. they got the attention of the manager and he came over to immediately start yelling at me. I, taken aback, asked him to stop yelling at me and hear me out so I could explain the situation. He must have thought I was a doordash driver opening up other people's orders, but I was in fact a customer trying to make sure my own order was correct. After a little more back and forth with the manager, he snatched the bag back and told me to just cancel the order. I tried to get his attention but he continued to walk away and yell back at me to just cancel the order. If I could have I would have, but there was no option to do so on my end as I had used the website to place the order and pay. Now I am out the $30 for the order and their customer service center has yet to reach back out to me on the matter. I have never been treated so poorly at any kind of establishment for any reason. I will steer clear of this place in the future, if you are reading this I would recommend you do as well....

Bad customer service; Manager is rude.

Me and my friend came from the beach a Thursday ( a small group, just 5 people) and they treat us good, probably because the girl who served us was friend with one of my friends. That time I didn’t have a shirt on, because we just came from the beach, you could see we did. Anyway, that day the employees were good and kind and respectful to all us. So I decided to go back (yesterday, a week later) because all my friends went back to the beach so we decided to stop on our way home to eat there. Big mistake, a soon as I walked in, the manager just got from nowhere saying outloud to get out of the place “because I had not shirt” and not in a polite way. He was being really rude and a little bit aggressive. He treat us as we were homeless people. They took long to take our food to our tables, which is look like a thing in here. The first time, we all order shakes and they they gave us the shakes in a glass cups, and this time they gave us the drinks in a plastic cup (those cups they use for To-Go orders” ). I asked what happened to the glass cups, their answer was “we don’t have it at the moment”. Then no even a minute later they brought to one of the other customer not far from us A GLASS CUP, this is the moment I felt like they thought we were homeless or some trouble people or i don’t know what they thought from us. I don’t want that kind of service again, that’s why I’m never going back again, this people are disrespectful, lack of equality to people, and aggressive. If you go here, try to look like a really white rich person and you’ll get all the good service you want, otherwise, you’ll probably get kick out...