Steak 'n Shake — Restaurant in Star City

So, first of all, this location is way too small for parking, to have a drive thru, or even to dine in. Way too small to accommodate the high traffic area where they built it. We walked from our house to avoid the overwhelming traffic, and while entering building you have to walk through drive thru traffic and people making dash to leave from the small parking area to a small entrance that creates chaos. I was almost pinned between two cars in the drive thru traffic at the knees because nobody pays attention they just want to get out of there finally and get their food at the Drive thru. After a hey watch where you are going I had to exclaim, we entered to find the place packed with a 30 min wait as it turned out. While standing in line to order, a female manager came out on the floor and in the rudest voice you can imagine, literally screams, "THERE ARE NO SHAKES RIGHT NOW!". Okay it's the second day of opening and no shakes. Thanks for screaming that at me from 15 feet away, and isn't that half of the business name? Steak and "Shakes"? So today it was Steak and sorry about your luck. They all seemed pissed and overwhelmed as employees, more than obvious after the screaming, so we began to take more notice while waiting in line for a while. Also don't expect to pay with cash because most all "self order" kiosks only took a card. I saw none that took cash for dine in. My family can't give a review on a shakes because as I mentioned, it was NO SHAKES FOR YOU! The burgers were high priced and tasted cheap and hurried. The fries about the same. Potato paste fries like McDonald's, with a cheap untoasted bun for the burger. The meat was okay it just needed some help as the finished product. Thinking after what we went through overall that it will be this way every visit for a very long time if not for the time it will be there. Again it is in one of the highest traffic areas in our town and honestly when a new fast food place, not so fast at this one actually, comes to town it can't handle the flow and creates traffic issues and wrecks to the point police have to show up to direct and deal with it for quite a while. This will be just that now that students are back for college here for sure. It's not that far from campus. Mark my words I have lived here all my life, and run many actual restaurants and pizza shops so it's not rocket science to figure out. This location was a bad idea for many reasons even if it was a bigger building, lot and entrance/exit. You have to be coming down a very fast paced hill to enter it if you can because the lot is already full as well as drive thru out into the entrance on busy times if day so far and the students just now returned after the nit so grand ipening. . When leaving you must turn right as to not illegally turn across many lanes coming down to go up the hill to the left. Which people will try, because to the right takes you to the town center and the interstate unless you know to take a right at the bottom before the stop lights to go back around to make it back to campus through Star City then back to downtown Morgantown and campus. I know that's a lot of words, but mark them. 😆 "NO SHAKES FOR...

Caveat: This is a new business, and was supposed to open before the pandemic, so everyone's expectations and anticipation were very high.

The Food: I liked what I got. It had been years since I'd has SnS, but I felt like it was up to their usual solid-quality standard. Everything was hot when I got it, and I had no problems with how it tasted.

The Prices: Higher than I'd like, but recent inflation has made that true everywhere, so I can't fault this restaurant for that.

Ordering and Menu: Ordering in the dining room is done via touchscreen menu. It's not as intuitive as it could be, I think; to order a hamburger without cheese, you have to order the cheeseburger, then manually remove the cheese on a different screen. (I was able to figure it out, but my mother had some difficulty.) Again, that's a corporate thing, so I can't fault this location for it.

Service: Since it was a new business, the employees were clearly swamped. They came out to wipe tables and refill napkins when they had a moment, but I could see them in the open kitchen working nonstop. I spoke to two of them, and they were incredibly friendly and professional.

The Dining Room: About 60% of the space is for tables, while the rest is for ordering and waiting. I feel like it was designed with drive-thru as a priority. When it's not new-biz busy, I don't believe it'll be a problem.

Restrooms: Clean and spacious. Too spacious, actually; while the men's room is no doubt wheelchair-friendly, it only has one toilet and sink. (I obviously can't speak for the ladies' room.)

Parking: There's ample parking for the dining room. However...

Access: This is the one thing I have an issue with. To enter, you have to go up a short incline from the four-lane highway, and are directed right; drive-thru hugs the wall of the building, while parking is accessed by driving to the right of the drive-thru line. This presents a problem at the far corner of the building where drive-thru turns; if anyone is out too far, parking traffic can potentially bottleneck. The entrance to the restaurant is via sidewalk on the parking side, but requires crossing the drive-thru line, meaning you might have to maneuver between cars. Leaving also requires you to drive past the drive-thru line and back down the incline. (I recommend a right turn unless there's no traffic at all on...

While I agree with a lot of the reviews that this place was not a good location for the steak ‘n Shake, I do think a lot of the other reviews are absolutely unfair towards the employees and food, as I will explain.

Food price: As affordability goes I’ve fed my family of seven for $50 (including shakes!!!). Not even McDonald’s is capable of providing this amount of food with that level of affordability.

Quality of the food: I drove five hours with five kids specifically to get a steak ‘n Shake burger for my anniversary. We stayed in a hotel and drove five hours back the next day. I was not in the slightest disappointed with my meal and it was well worth the drive!

Service: people seem irritated that it’s a self-serve kiosk as if that’s some kind of horrible thing. Do you not realize they’ve taken away the need to tip someone? I don’t understand how in this economy that’s a bad thing. On a $50 tip I’d probably end up tipping $15 and my meal would have cost me $65 instead of $50! There was a problem with the bathroom while I was there (they ran out of toilet paper) but I notified the manager and it was fixed immediately!

Cleanliness: it was one of the cleanest steak ‘n shakes. I’ve ever been in. Steak ‘n Shake bathrooms are notorious for being gross, they’ve been that way since I was a small child but this bathroom wasn’t dirty at all. It was frustrating that they didn’t have toilet paper in there but again it was ratified rather quickly.

Being a big family we get a lot of dirty looks almost everywhere we go. Even with well-behaved kids a lot of places look at us as if our kids are gonna be a big mess and we’re gonna leave a disaster for them (which we don’t). Yet not once did the employees make me feel uncomfortable for having a bunch kids.

The entire town’s infrastructure sucks and giving it a one star review because the town’s infrastructure sucks comes off as obnoxious and Karen-y…. It feels like a lot of these reviewers were looking for reasons to complain (and if you check out there other reviews, you can kind of see that...