Steak 'n Shake — Restaurant in Georgia

Jana Klock post:

A lot of you know what I do for work. I don’t normally post things like this, but it really broke my heart. At work today, we took a group of 9 individuals to Steak N Shake in Carrollton for lunch. We’ve been there a couple of times and never had the service we had today. Today when we walked in, there was nobody there eating. There were maybe 2 cars in the drive thru. We were told by the cashier to come place our order at the counter. While assisting individuals in placing their orders, the cashier said to us, “Next time you come eat here, you need to call ahead and let us know so we can be prepared, because right now we are in the lunch rush.” I just looked around at the empty restaurant and said “There’s nobody here.” She looked aggravated and then said “Well if you call ahead, we can go ahead and have it ready for you.” I said “well we encourage our individuals to be independent and order for themselves and be more involved in the community.” She said “Well they’ve done it before like that.” I just looked at her. We don’t call ahead and order for them. She kinda just dropped it. As we were ordering, a group of 4 linemen come in and the cashier said to them, “Y’all go ahead and sit wherever you’d like, we will be right with you!” One of our individuals said, “Why did we have to order at the counter? We used to be able to sit down first.” Another group of 3 or 4 guys come in and the cashier told them to sit wherever they’d like. Well, we finish ordering and sit down. Two more guys come in, same thing. A few minutes go by and they had the individuals drinks in togo cups on the counter. The cashier went to other people’s table and took their orders, and brought their drinks to them in regular cups. The individuals noticed and asked us why they didn’t get normal cups like they have before. They like the experience of the diner feel. Then the cashier said from the counter, “Y’all’s food is ready, just match the receipt in the bag with yours.” They made the individuals food to go. The cashier took the other guests food to them on regular plates. Our individuals were spreading out napkins to dump their food on to eat. One of the individuals said, “Why are we not getting plates like those people are?” One of the individuals had a milkshake, and they went up to the counter to ask for a spoon. They asked politely and the lady responded, “Why, You got a milkshake or something?” I looked at the sizes of the cups for drinks and milkshakes, and they are the same size. A gentlemen in the restaurant noticed all of this and he told me he hates how the individuals were being treated. When we were leaving, the individuals said, “I don’t want to come back here, let’s go back to Wrightway next month!” (David, they really enjoyed their time when we ate there. Y’all treated them very well and they still talk about it.) They were all excited to go out and eat today, and they were treated terribly. It really looked like they just wanted to get them their food and out of the restaurant. The man spoke to the manager and the cashier on our behalf. If you are the gentlemen who did this, and you see this post, we really appreciate you standing up for our individuals.

Again, I’m not one to post and try to start stuff, but it broke my heart to see how the individuals were treated there today. It’s one thing If the way the restaurant runs is to order first, then sit down, but Steak ‘n Shake is not like...

Went here tonight with my boyfriend to get a quick dessert after seeing a movie. We both ordered hot fudge sundaes, and it took 25 minutes to get them. There were only two other groups dining in (and they had already received their food), and the drive thru was pretty bare, so I'm not sure what the holdup was.

From where we were sitting my boyfriend could see what we believed to be our sundaes sitting on the counter and melting. We wanted to ask if they were ours but the server didn't pass back by after bringing us our waters, and the manager kept vanishing. When we finally got them we noticed that one of them wasn't even filled all the way.

Also, during our wait time a couple had come in and waited to be seated... and waited. And waited some more. And then finally left.

We didn't want to wait another 25 minutes to get our receipt so we went right to the register where our server wasn't allowed access to the computer/register. She had to go find the manager and we had to wait anyway. It was a short wait, but long enough for me to observe clods of dirt and dust in the vents of the computers. Not an appetizing sight. Then we saw what the biggest problem of all is: The manger.

The "How do you do, fellow kids?" meme comes to mind. The entire staff was made up of teenagers, with the exception of him, and he was trying way too hard to be relatable and fit into their peer group. One of the teens accidentally broke a glass and the rest of them started going, "ooooOOOHHHH!" and one shouted a few obscenities as a joke. I'm not deeply offended by cursing at all, but it sounded like they were having a party in the back and the manger was trying to be the cool uncle or something similar.

Note to the manager: You're a grown man, an adult. You're not 18 years old. Stop trying to be besties with them and be a manager. You're ensuring unhappy customers and setting up your employees for future failure by letting them...

Normally, this Steak' n Shake is very good and has wonderful servers. On the day I visited with my husband and a friend, we visited around 1:45 and they were not crowded. There were many empty seats, but lots of people working behind the counter. Apparently our waitress was new, I ordered the guacamole burger, she knew nothing about this type burger and had to ask the cook. It is no longer available, not a problem I ordered a Swiss'n cheese, mushroom with a garlic sauce. My husband and friend ordered double or triple burgers. All burgers were dry and over cooked. My plate had a whitish cup on the side I asked our waitress what the item was, but she didn't know. Our dining party assumed it was the garlic sauce, it wad nothing more than greasy mayonnaise with a garlic substance in it, I pushed it the side. We had to get the attention of our waitress for napkins and again had to wave our empty glasses for refills....keep in mind, they were not crowded nor was the drive thru busy. Our waitress was mopping during our visit and slipped and fell flat on he back, she lay there for a moment, but I sprung up to help, the other employees only looked and turned away. I did my best to help her up and once she was up she said she was OK. It was obvious she was new, she kept looking at the manager as if she was going to get fired, but she continued to mop. I marched to the manager and told him the girl had taken a hard fall while mopping, he just looked at me and turned around and returned to overcooking burgers. Our check was placed on the table before her fall & my friend ordered a vanilla shake, we had decided then she would get a poor tip, but after the fall and the way management turned their eyes, we left a very generous tip, although we had to ask for the shake, which was somewhat melted. Such poor, poor management, but not all bad employees. We...