Beef tallow helped Steak n Shake boost sales last year. | Photo: Shutterstock.
Steak n Shake is a lot smaller than it was in 2018 or even 2024, but it is generating much stronger sales.
That is the conclusion from the latest annual report from Biglari Holdings and the companion shareholder letter from its chairman, Sardar Biglari. It is the only time Biglari says anything publicly, making it a crucial check on the company’s progress.
Steak n Shake generated remarkably strong same-store sales last year, thanks to a different operating model and a new marketing strategy targeting the MAGA crowd. Same-store sales rose 10.2% last year, a particularly strong performance given the overall weak industry backdrop.
That was its best performance since 1992, excluding the pandemic rebound year of 2022, Biglari said. “We reconstituted the senior management team and embraced a new mission, a new energy and a new pace,” he wrote. “By revitalizing Steak n Shake, we made it relatable to a new generation that is itself faster paced, more mobile and keenly interested in quality.”
The burger chain started making its fries in beef tallow, which earned one of its restaurants a visit from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It started accepting Bitcoin payments. And it started using cane sugar Coca-Cola.
Biglari said that the company will shift to grass-fed Steakburgers. He also said the company plans to test a new “retro-futuristic aesthetic” in several restaurants that will feature Tesla Supercharger stations. He also said that the company is “exploring the introduction of robotics and robotaxis, in an effort to anticipate the future.”
“We want to combine tradition stemming from our founding in 1934 with a look toward 2034,” Biglari wrote.
Steak n Shake, which flirted with bankruptcy in 2021, shifted to a counter-service model with a $50 million investment in store remodels and new kiosks.
But the chain also has fewer locations. The company closed 22 restaurants last year and finished 2025 with 404 restaurants. That is 35% fewer than it operated in 2018, when Steak n Shake peaked at 626 restaurants. It is also 94 restaurants fewer than it operated in 2008, when Biglari took over as its chairman.
The biggest problem? Franchisees. Operators closed 13 locations last year and now operate fewer than half of the 2013 restaurants they ran in 2019.
Franchising was a major initiative after Biglari took over Steak n Shake’s operation, and the chain went from 71 franchisee locations to those 213 restaurants.
Biglari blamed the struggles of franchisees now on the fact that they did not follow the company’s “transformation” initiative. “Although the current group had an exceptional year in growing same-store sales, we have not stemmed unit closures,” he said. He said there is “a lag between the progress we make as a company and franchise unit growth.”
The company’s franchise partnership model has also stagnated the past couple of years. Operators pay $10,000 and share in the profits. Partners take over operations of corporate-owned units. The system has 179 such locations, up from 173 the year before but down from 181 in 2023.
“The program has exceeded all expectations but one: We have yet to convert the entire system from company-operated units to franchise partnerships,” Biglari said. The remaining locations are lower-volume units, he said, “which makes them a tough sell for the kind of franchise partners we seek. Nonetheless, the continued upswing in their profits should enhance those stores’ prospects.”
Steak n Shake is apparently doing well enough, however, that the chain borrowed $225 million at 9% interest. Biglari Holdings does not guarantee the debt, but the restaurant chain sent those funds to the parent company that it can use to invest in other businesses.
Biglari Holdings has kept the funds in U.S. Treasury bills, which pay an interest rate of 4% annually. The difference in interest costs the company $11 million. “We carry that expense in anticipation of attractive opportunities, which are rare and temporary in nature,” Biglari said.
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