Steak 'n Shake — Restaurant in Pensacola

No one get me wrong I WANT desperately to like this place because everyone I know does. The first time I sat down at this location was on the day of the eclipse when I got off class and joined my parents for lunch. Deciding to play it safe and simple I ordered chicken and fries. The fries were so greasy with little flavor to them other than the grease and my chicken hadn't even finished cooking when it was served to me. A few months later I stopped by again hoping the first time had just been unfortunate circumstance. This time I ordered the steak. I figured if it was in the name it would be good. I've never had a steak that dry. Fed up at that point I had no desire to go back. A few more months pass, I've started a new job and my co-worker is appalled that I don't like eating at Steak 'n Shake so we get into an argument. He insists that he's always had good experiences here with the food and tells me he is taking me there for lunch and I will fall in love with their milkshakes-they're famous and delicious. After an hour of the argument I give in, thinking if everything went wrong again I could at least get a decent soda out of it. The chicken was cooked this time and the fries were not greasy but neither had any flavor to write home about. McDonalds, Whataburger, Wendy's etc have much better fries than this place. I didn't raise my hopes and asked for a strawberry milkshake. The waiter set it down in front of me and I was happy at the sight of it. It looked so good. I pulled the glass over and went to take a drink. Couldn't get anything through the straw. Frustrated I reached for the spoon that had been put in the glass opposite and pulled it up-only for the entire glass and it's contents to come with it. Curious I picked up the fork that had been left over from my coworker and I's meal that we hadn't used and pushed it through the hill of whip cream on top of the milkshake. I was shocked to find that the entirety of the milkshake save the hill of whip cream was a solid block of ice. I then proceeded to pull the entire glass up off of the table by the straw itself. This is their so called famous "milkshake"? My coworker stared in disbelief as I started picking through the ice with my fork hoping there was some form of edible ice cream beneath the glacier. I don't get why this place is popular but on the bright side my co-worker didn't argue...

I recently dined at Steak ‘n Shake and, while the food itself was passable, the service was exceptionally poor. Our server, Hunter, unfortunately demonstrated a complete lack of attentiveness and care from the very beginning. Upon being seated, I was handed a damaged menu that was difficult to read, which set an unprofessional tone for the visit. No effort was made to replace it.

Throughout the meal, Hunter never checked back to see if we needed anything. Our drinks were left empty for the majority of the visit without a single refill. When our food was delivered, it was simply dropped off with no follow up whatsoever. At the end of the meal, the check was placed on the table abruptly without splitting the bill as requested, and without any parting words or acknowledgment. The entire experience felt rushed, as if the goal was to get us in and out as quickly as possible rather than provide a welcoming or enjoyable dining environment.

What makes this even more disappointing is that the restaurant was nearly empty during our visit only our table and one other, which was being served by a different server. There was no shortage of time or opportunity for basic customer service, making the lack of effort all the more unacceptable.

The food itself was fine, meeting baseline expectations for the brand, but nothing about the meal stood out in a positive way. Service is a critical component of dining out, and in this case, the inattentiveness, lack of professionalism, and absence of hospitality from our server completely overshadowed the food.

Unfortunately, this visit did not reflect the level of care and service that should be standard at any restaurant, let alone one with the long-standing reputation of Steak ‘n Shake. While I might consider returning in the future, it would be solely in the hope that the staff and management ensure customers receive the attention and respect...

NASTY AND RUDE! First off when we walked in the restaurant and were first seated, it reeked of mold and grease. Next, we witnessed a family next to us with a disabled child tormented up to the point where they got up to leave because their waiter was making rude comments to the disabled child that were 100% very inappropriate and even led to the child's mother crying. Then after waiting at least 15 minutes for our server to come around and ask for our drink orders, we were told there was a mixup and we did not actually have a waiter scheduled for our table, but they would get one for us soon. Keep in mind this place was far from busy and their were plenty of staff around chilling. Just as we thought it could not get any worse, our table received our milkshakes (which is all that we got and still waited 30 minutes for) and we all start drinking only to find out that one of us had gotten a milkshake with what appeared to be some type of weird hair/worm looking thing. We called over our waiter trying not to make a big scene and he tried to reassure us it was just a part of "another" type or desert or packaging. All he did was offer our friend a new straw. She continued to drink and found more of these nasty items in her mouth so we called over our waiter again because we were completely disgusted and at this point, none of us could continue drinking ours and even one person spit theirs out because of the pure nastiness. THEN, our waiter WHISPERED to us "to be honest I really do not know what that stuff in there is if I'm being real" then told us that he would remake it again for our friend. She got a new milkshake, but obviously was not in the mood to drink it after almost contracting a disease the first time. Funny part is they STILL made us PAY for all of our junky shakes. This place needs a deep clean & some new staff. Gordon Ramsey might not even be able to turn this...