I was incredulous when I first heard the rumors, but it looks like they’re true: Steak ‘n Shake is coming to New York City, with a location in Midtown Manhattan right next door to the Ed Sullivan Theater. Just like when I heard the Neely’s Bar-B-Q Upper East Side opening announcement that I discussed five months ago, I should be ecstatic, but I’m not. It’s just more poaching of regional specialties to swell heads in the City of Big Egos. It was bad enough finding Garrett Popcorn on 34th Street just weeks after Macy’s muscled its way into Chicago and wiped out Marshall Field’s. What’s next, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard at Grand Central Station? Voodoo Doughnut at Columbus Circle? Something definitely gets lost along the way when my favorite regional treats become little more than brand names in the middle of Big Apple touristland.
Also, this announcement confirms what I’ve long thought to be the case: that Sardar Biglari, the 80s-style corporate raider who acquired Steak ‘n Shake in a hostile takeover in 2008, has turned this beloved Midwestern institution into a silly caricature. Biglari has closed locations and cut hours, especially in small towns across the Midwest where Steak ‘n Shake was the only non-fast-food establishment open past 10pm. At the same time, he’s been opening up locations that seem like little more than publicity stunts, including the one in NYC and one inside a Las Vegas casino. He took the headquarters out of the Midwest and plopped them down in San Antonio, Texas, a city that didn’t get its first SnS until earlier this year. He’s taken some of the choice off the menu (gone are the more interesting shake combinations, as well as the customizable dinner platters) and given in to gimmicky food trends by introducing “steak franks” (ordinary hot dogs), dry, flavorless miniburgers, and a ridiculous thick-cut bacon that overpowers the classic steakburger. He even ripped off Culver’s by adding a “Wisconsin Buttery Steakburger” to the menu. Soft drinks, which used to be served in real glassware, now come in hulking green plastic Coca-Cola-branded tumblers, while a junior-size milkshake comes in a humiliatingly cutesy plastic kiddie cup. To top it all off, a creepy, cultish picture of a smiling Biglari now greets you at the entrance to every restaurant, and there are rumors that the real china and table service will soon be dropped in favor of a “Five Guys”-type counter service format. Bah humbug.
Biglari’s clumsy retooling of Steak ‘n Shake, along with his opening of locations in such theme-parkish locations as Midtown Manhattan and Vegas, has diluted my once-warm memories of the place. For me, Steak ‘n Shake will always be a road-trip classic; it’s the bright light beckoning off the freeway around dinnertime, the feeling that hits after three states’ worth of cornfields and billboards for Indian casinos, when you’re fueled only by beef jerky and energy drink and your favorite playlist interspersed with NPR and you could probably go a hundred or so more miles before you collapse onto the bed at the Comfort Inn in Cape Girardeau. Sitting amongst the $15 margaritas, T-shirt vendors, and neck-craning tourists of Midtown Manhattan, it’s just… out of its element.
