What You Should Absolutely Never Order At Steak 'N Shake

Despite the name, you won't be chowing down on delicious steaks alongside your shakes when you dine at Steak 'n Shake. Instead, the nearly century-old American fast-food restaurant is known for its menu filled with "steak" burgers and sugar-laden milkshakes, extremely affordable prices, and late-night dining.

While popular with those looking for cheap (and pretty good, if you're not watching your health) meals at any hour, Steak 'n Shake has had a rough last few years. In summer 2020, the restaurant closed more than 50 of its locations, citing financial problems related to the coronavirus pandemic, with parent company Biglari Holdings reporting a $7.9 million loss during Q1 2020. However, even before the pandemic hit, Steak 'n Shake was facing monumental problems, and in summer 2019, Steak 'n Shake closed 44 restaurants, with customer traffic falling 7.7 percent in Q1 2019.

So, if you hold a special place in your heart for your local Steak 'n Shake, you may want to pay it a visit soon — you never know when you might lose it, as the restaurant seems to be doing little to nothing to win its years-long battle to remain relevant, despite its one major promotion in 2020 giving free fries away with every order. When you're there, be sure to enjoy those (sometimes) free fries as well as the classic steak burgers that have made Steak 'n Shake famous, but steer clear from these ten items you should absolutely never order at Steak 'n Shake.

Steak 'n Shake's chili has a large following, as attested by the large amount of copycat recipes you can find via Google. Maybe it's the perfect blend of steak and beans, maybe it's the little oyster crackers that come on the side — or maybe it's the whopping pile of grease that the cooks add to the chili before it makes its way to your table.

According to Reddit user socolover14, who replied to a thread on restaurant workers revealing what they'd never order from their restaurant, "Currently employed at Steak 'n Shake. In my opinion, you should never order any kind of mac, chili mac, or mac supreme. We are told to put in more grease than beef. So if you are really craving it, specifically ask for it dry. You will get less grease and more beef."

A look at Steak 'n Shake's ingredients lists shows that the "grease" socolover14 refers to is likely beef fat, which, if you were making chili at home, you'd likely drain off before adding the beef to your chili mixture. However, even if you're fine with the idea of the grease to beef ratio in your chili being a little skewed, the chili mac is pretty high up there when it comes to calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar. One serving of the chili mac comes with 1,200 calories, 16 grams of saturated fat, 2,710 milligrams of sodium, and 16 grams of sugar.

Some Steak 'n Shake locations offer a breakfast menu, on which you'll find diner-style classics, like a homestyle breakfast with eggs any style, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and your choice of bread, as well as all-you-can-eat pancakes. The breakfast menu also features some "skillets" and "scramblers," which are basically all a mixture of scrambled eggs with a range of ingredients thrown in, like cheese, sausage crumbles, onions, mushrooms, etc.

But when you take a closer look at the ingredients, things get a bit sus — and by "a bit," it's more like "a lot." For the plain scrambled eggs (which, if you're making plain scrambled eggs at home, requires about two or three ingredients, max), the Steak 'n Shake ingredients and allergen list documents almost 15 ingredients. Just for the scrambled eggs. No mix-ins, no add-ons. Just eggs. Except, it's not just eggs. It's eggs plus a range of artificial flavors, colors, and oils, that put together, produces something resembling a normal scrambled egg. It's all completely unnecessary. Just use a normal egg.

The trend in fast food burgers over the past decade or so has been to pile delectable toppings of various complementary tastes and textures atop meat patties until the sandwich can no longer maintain structural integrity. For example, there's Carl's Jr.'s Pastrami Thickburger (with pastrami on top of various usual burger accouterments) and Steak N' Shake's Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger. It's so much sandwich there's little chance the average person can eat this handheld, without a knife, and without making a mess. Steak N' Shake's burger tacticians start with two big beef patties and then add a slice of spicy pepper jack cheese and spread chipotle-infused mayo on both buns along with a hefty portion of salsa, jalapeños, and breaded and crispy fried onions. (It's that last ingredient that gives the sandwich its titular "Crunch.")

While that's a lot of vegetables, with a volume and variety generally not seen at meat-and-cheese-oriented national fast food franchises, the Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger remains a less than healthy choice for Steak N' Shake diners. The federal government's dietary guidelines (via Michigan State University) recommend adults consume about 2,000 calories and 65 grams of total fat a day. The Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger contains almost half of those daily calorie needs (790) and almost all of the fat (53). It's also one of the saltiest items on Steak N' Shake's menu, with 1,590 milligrams of sodium.

Steak N' Shake's Royale is simply and elegantly named, carrying a grand title that downplays the caloric and nutritional chaos within. On that note, it's probably never a good idea, in the name of personal health, to consume a food that seems to be inspired by something that made Homer Simpson, a proud glutton with little concern for his own well-being, aggressively salivate. In the 1992 "The Simpsons" episode "Bart's Friend Falls in Love," Homer sees a commercial for "The Good Morning Burger," a fast food behemoth consisting of 18 ounces of beef soaked in "rich creamery butter" and topped with bacon, ham, and a fried egg. 

It's so extreme that it couldn't possibly be real, but about three decades later, The Good Morning Burger is available at many Steak N' Shake outlets — because it's essentially The Royale. The only major difference is that Steak N' Shake doesn't douse it in butter, but they top it with cheese; the bacon and egg remain. Altogether, this beast is anything but modest, containing 800 calories, 56 grams of fat, and nearly 1,400 milligrams of sodium.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, one of the most popular and widely available candies, are actually two treats in one. In its original form, it consists of sweetened, crumbly peanut butter encased in a scalloped shell of creamy milk chocolate. It's a decadent dessert unto itself, but it's merely an ingredient in a couple of Steak N' Shake's many milkshake offerings. Guests can go with the standard Reese's Peanut Butter Cup shake, which combines milk, vanilla ice cream, and crumbled Reese's Peanut Butter Cups into a powerfully sweet and also somewhat savory drinkable dessert. That one is one of the most calorically dense items on the entire Steak N' Shake menu, containing 840 calories and 82 grams of sugar. That's more calories than two Steak N' Shake Steak Franks and about as much sugar as two 32 ounce servings of Coca-Cola Classic from the chain's soda fountain.

But patrons can somehow put even more body-taxing sugar into their bodies with a variation on the Reese's-branded shake. It's also available in the Reese's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup variety, which adds a hefty portion of chocolate syrup to the milk, ice cream, and candy chunks. That one adds 920 calories and 94 grams of sugar to a customer's daily tally.