Steak 'n Shake — Restaurant in Plainfield

We were staying at a hotel nearby and chose this steak 'n shake for supper. It was obvious this restaurant was short staffed however we seated in about 5 minutes after arriving. After a lengthy time at our table are order was finally taken however our server supposedly had an emergency and had to leave. This left one waitress to cover the entire floor they even had cooks taking orders. The person who appeared to be the manager when we arrived was nowhere to be found. It took 55 minutes for our food to arrive which is a near eternity with five hungry young nieces. The food was below average for steak 'n shake probably due to the short staffing and the lack of proper attention to the kitchen. The women's restroom was dirty and the entire floor in the seating area was grimy, greasy, and covered in food and not just from that day; it was ground into chips and cracks in the tile work. After a short conversation with one of the workers I found out that they had been scheduled short staffed for the evening. This is a Saturday night in a busy location with a lot of hotels they're never should be a short staff situation in this circumstance. Judging from past reviews with a lot of the same issues it appears to be a systemic problem with the management of this store. Someone needs to be fired and replaced with someone of competence to lead these people and to put out a quality product in a clean and comfortable environment in a timely manner. I am from the town where Steak 'n Shake originated in 1934 and the founder Gus Belt would turn over in his grave if he could see the state of this...

Before I get too into detail with this one-star review, please know that the food is fine. The food tastes like Steak N Shake food should taste. Getting that food, that's a different story entirely. We were there for 90 minutes. Once our food order was in, it took 30 minutes to get our food. Once we were finished with our food, we ordered a shake to go. It took over 30 minutes for them to make our shake. We didn't even get a ticket. We had to wait at the register for another 10 minutes. In our time there, multiple times people walked in, stood waiting 10+ minutes for someone to seat them, and they weren't even greeted!! We watched several couples and groups just walk out after waiting. The crazy thing is, there were empty tables! They had at least four servers, three cooks, and a manager in the back. The cooks were calling out that there were people waiting to be seated/cashed out, and the manager would just holler that she didn't have anyone to spare. How can this place be ran so poorly? They were adequately staffed. We literally watched a guy stock oyster crackers in a bin while there were dozens of people waiting to be seated! The weekend before, we were actually met at the door, and a server said "it will be at least 30 minutes before we can seat you." Half of the place was empty! They were just short staffed and didn't want to serve multiple tables. I will never be back. Not unless whoever is running the show gets their act together and learns how to actually manage...

Very bad service. Arrived at restaurant around 1:00 a.m. on Sunday 2-17-19. Seated ourselves. We told the female server we sat ourselves since they were busy at time of arrival. She acknowledged us. About 10 minutes later a male server came over with menus and too our drink order. Delivered drinks shortly after. Took our food order - 3 people who all ordered grilled cheese and small fries. A couple other groups came in, were seated with menus. The female server took the orders of two out of three tables who were a group that came in together. Priceeded to get drinks for the 2 tables. After about 10 minutes of not taking 3rd table of group order, we told the girl she forgot to take the 3rd tables order. After a total of about 1 hour from our arrival time, the people who had come in after us received their food order, but we had not. Giving them the benefit of the doubt that they had gotten busy all at once, we waited a few more minutes to see if we got our food. With no luck we finally got up and let. Reminding you this was over an hour after our arrival. WE HAVE DECIDED THAT WE HAVE HAD 2 BAD EXPERIENCES WITH STEAK AND SHAKE THAT WE WILL NEVER TRY STEAK AND SHAKE...