Steak 'n Shake — Restaurant in Jacksonville

To start off, i have been coming here since i first got a car some four years ago or so. i always try to find the good in the bad. Their food is almost always great. the past three experiences, and a random one out of every four visits have always been horrible. this and the previous experience were absolutely below what id consider decent. i just left there at 5:30pm-ish today (July 26, 2018). i decided to check my order while driving back home from a dentist appointment, since i couldnt smell the fries (i order this exact meal every time i go there, and i know how it smells when there is a large cajun fry is there-- dont ask lol, it smells like more spices are present), i checked the bag and behold, exactly what you see is what they gave me. im sure thats a regular size cup, im not too positive. i wouldnt have complained at all but these fries were obviously cold at some point then reheated in some half baked attempt to make them seem fresh. then to add to that, id understand if there was a fry scarcity, but i saw multiple large fries being handed to people in front of me, so unless im the unlucky one twice in a row, i dont know what to call this but bulls#^t. i did ask for a large meal, and im sure thats a regular meal price, so technically i shouldnt have any right to complain about it. however, it is more frequent that my faith is continually crushed rather than instilled in this s#^t show. i dont understand how baked you have to be in order to ruin an order multiple times, or how baked you have to be to work there, but the carelessness of the food prep team has left me baffled quite a few times too many. i have also noticed, only when who seems to be the manager or district manager shows up and works, do the employees do exactly as theyre supposed to.

mind you, i dont blame the managers, nor those taking orders. food prep is my victim today. as their poor judgement have also made me sick in the past, have upset numerous people of which i buy food here for gatherings, they have upset me, who at one point ate here twice a day at least for a year straight. they have obviously upset more people than myself, as you can see some of these people still sympathetically rated this establishment better than i am willing to. i dont know where else to go with this. i am beyond unhappy. and no, i did not go in either time, i am a typically busy person, and have no time to stop to get an order fixed. i understand there are other places to eat, however, this is the only place i like. its disappointing to have to say something continually happens like this at your favorite fast food chain, but i refuse to not let that...

I haven't been to a Steak 'n Shake in several years. I used to love their food and friendly service. They used to take your order at the table and bring food to you. So when I walked in to the restaurant, I was surprised to see it is now a kiosk only ordering system. No worries, lots of places have gone to kiosks. But there were literally no actual human workers in sight, which felt odd to me. We ordered our food and went to sit down. Every table was absolutely filthy, sticky, covered in food and straw wrappers. I couldn't find anyone to ask to wipe a table down, so we tried using the napkins but they literally just stuck to the table. I also didn't realize how they changed their drink system. You have to scan a barcode on your receipt to get a drink, otherwise the fountain does not work. This took me admittedly a bit to figure out because they didn't make it obvious (the scanner is very small) and there was no one to ask/no sign with instructions visable. I thought the drink machine was broken. It honestly felt like they think all there patrons are criminals out to steal all their sodas, which made for a not great vibe (Note: There was a barcode that said drink voucher on the receipt but it also didn't have any kind of instruction as to what you were supposed to do with it). I also saw customers after me do the same thing, so I don't think it was just my oversight. When they brought my food out, they missed an item so I had to stand at the counter for a bit before someone came out from behind the wall and I let him know I was missing it. He just stared at me saying nothing before I clarified I had paid for the item and held up the receipt to show him, he then gave a big sigh, grabbed the item and handed it to me. I said thank you and he just stared at me and went back behind the wall without saying anything. I've never felt like such a burden for simply asking for an item I was supposed to have gotten in the first place. The food itself was a mixed bag, though not great- The burger tasted the same as it used to and was good. The onion rings were soggy and gross. My son's fries were already cold. I don't think I've ever seen such a stark contrast of a before and after where the changes seemed to have this negative of an impact. It made me want to leave before even getting the food. I felt like I had to apologize to my kid for bringing him here cause I had talked it up so much and then it was so bad...

We arrived at 12 pm for a quick bite. Seated fairly quickly, took a few minutes to get our drink order and we ordered our daughter's food with the drink order. Drinks and and my daughter's food came out in a timely manner. This is where it turned sour. The server came to take our order, simple enough; a single burger all the way, light on the mayo and a triple burger with cheese, no tomato. Easy, right? Well, I guess not. Our food came and my friend's triple didn't have tomato on it( good sign) but no cheese. She offered to have it remade and honestly it came back looking like they just threw the patties back on the grill and slapped cheese on to melt then brought it back. Okay, my "light mayo" turned out to be a big glob of mayo right in the center on the burger. No big deal, I took a fry and just swiped a good tablespoon of mayo off the burger. As we are finishing our meals, we wanted some shakes to go, but WHERE WAS OUR SERVER?! Looking around, she's managing the register with a long line taking others' orders while she had tables. (being a former server, your tables come first) So I flagged down another server to let them know we wanted some shakes to go. He writes them down and hands them to our server. She comes back and let's us know that she's going to make them and leaves the updated bill. Problem, only 2 shakes were on the tab. Being hopeful, that she didn't forget there were 3, she would come back with 3 shakes. Did she? No. So I kindly let her know we had an extra shake that was missing and she obliged and made my shake. We told her just add the third shake to the bill. She was nice enough to let that slide but come on. What was supposed to be about a 45 min lunch turned into an hour and a half of waiting and screw ups. It wasn't busy. They weren't slammed in the drive through, nor was the dining area packed. She came by once to see if we needed refills and then she was gone. Not sure if she was not properly trained or just didn't care but I really really recommend that YOU DO NOT COME TO THIS LOCATION. SERVICE IS HORRENDOUS. Yes, the server was kind and had no attitude about the inconveniences of it all but this was just not good...