Steak 'n Shake: History, Key Facts and Reviews

1934-1954: Gus Belt’s steakburger in Normal, Illinois

Steak ’n Shake was founded in February 1934 by Augustus “Gus” Belt in Normal, Illinois, a town on Route 66 (Wikipedia). Belt turned the gas station and chicken restaurant he owned into a hamburger stand. The “steak” in the name is the steakburger, ground from T-bone, sirloin and round steaks. Many customers then distrusted ground beef, so Belt had the steaks ground in front of them, under the slogan “In Sight It Must Be Right”. The “shake” is the hand-dipped milkshake served alongside, still on the menu today.

1954-2008: Edith Belt, new owners and Indianapolis

Steak ’n Shake stayed in the founder’s family for 15 years after his death. Gus Belt died on August 20, 1954, and his wife Edith ran the chain until 1969, when she sold it to Longchamps, an East Coast steakhouse company. The Franklin Corporation of Indianapolis took control next and moved the head office from Normal to Indianapolis, where it remains. In 1981 E.W. Kelley and Associates bought the company, and Ed Kelley chaired it until his death in 2003. By the mid-2000s the chain was a full-service diner whose sales kept falling.

2008-2021: Sardar Biglari’s turnaround

Sardar Biglari took control of Steak ’n Shake in August 2008, after three years of declining sales and losses reported at $100,000 a day. He cut the eight-page menu down to a folded card built around burgers, fries and shakes. The chain is now a subsidiary of his holding company, Biglari Holdings. In 2018 it launched a franchise partner program: an operator pays $10,000 to run a restaurant and hands half of its profit to the company. From 2021 Steak ’n Shake moved away from table service toward a fast-food model, with self-service kiosks replacing the old lunch counters.

2014-2025: Europe, beef tallow fries and 404 restaurants

Steak ’n Shake opened its first European restaurant in May 2014, in Cannes, France, then went to Ibiza, Spain, in June 2014, and later to Milan, to Montijo in Portugal and to Monaco. In 2025 it switched its fries to 100% beef tallow and, from May, accepted Bitcoin in its US restaurants. At the end of 2025 Biglari Holdings counted 404 Steak ’n Shake restaurants: 131 company-operated, 179 run by franchise partners and 94 traditional franchises (Form 10-K 2025). The United States accounted for 387 of them, led by Florida (77), Illinois (56) and Indiana (52). Abroad, there were 15 in France and one each in Monaco and Spain. The network has shrunk from 628 restaurants in 2018.

Key dates

• 1934: Gus Belt opens the first Steak ’n Shake in Normal, Illinois, in February.
• 1954: Belt dies; his wife Edith takes over the chain.
• 1969: Edith Belt sells the company to Longchamps.
• 1981: E.W. Kelley and Associates buys Steak ’n Shake.
• 2008: Sardar Biglari takes control in August.
• 2014: first European restaurant, in Cannes, in May.
• 2018: launch of the franchise partner program.
• 2025: beef tallow fries and 404 restaurants at year-end.