Review: The Original Double ‘n Cheese from Steak ‘n Shake

Posted February 28th, 2012 | 4:46pm by Chefprotoss

My quest for quick serve burger perfection has taken me to another location; Steak ‘n Shake. Heralding from the Midwest with 457 locations, this truly old school burger joint has been expanding all over the country. Recently in Virginia, we received our first Steak ‘n Shake. Can this veteran of the burger business compete in the home state of Five Guy’s Burgers and Fries?

Steak ‘n Shake is a little weird. It’s kind of like a Denny’s with a smaller menu, drive thru, and more pretentious diner-aesthetic where the servers wear bow ties. It’s bright, neon colored, and there is metal all over the place. I feel whoever came up with this specific restaurant theme fantasized about eating lunch in a steel mill where for some inexplicable reason a circus was performing. Regardless of the dated and metal shop-creepy decor, if they serve a bangin’ burger, I am in heaven.

I figured I would go with what most would order; The Original Double ‘n Cheese (aka the Double Steakburger with Cheese).

Our most popular Steakburger! Two cooked-to-order Steakburgers with cheese on a toasted bun and your choice of toppings. Served with our famous thin ‘n crispy fries.

$3.99 gets you the burger, mandatory fries and choice of toppings. I went with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and thousand island, or as they call it; Frisco Sauce. Seems like a bargain, right? Not so fast. The patties are minuscule lumps of beef they smash to paper thin thickness on the flat top. While not bad, they are under seasoned (if seasoned at all), and about the size of a regular McDonald’s hamburger patty. The smashing technique can work out really well, but in this case, it just makes something small and really flat. I dig the leaf lettuce and fresh tomato, but the onion is sliced so thin, it may as well not be there.

I’m a huge pickle fan, and I love that they use the sandwich stacker size on the burgers. The problem though, is that there is a higher pickle to beef ratio than any burger I have ever seen before. Be careful what you ask for I guess.

The bun was average and the Frisco Sauce was very ketchup heavy. In-N-Out Spread this is not. All in all, with two more patties, onions that aren’t there just to tease me, and some salt and pepper, this would be a winner. As is, it has reached the bar of just okay and has no plans to go further. The fries are stock and perfectly match the theme of “just getting by”. To put the small size of the burger in perspective, those fries are really tiny. $3.99 doesn’t get you a lot of food. Although, you get what you pay for. This is smaller than a BK Topper and about 4/5ths as good.

I wanted to like Steak ‘n Shake, but it just doesn’t make any sense to me. All I want is a counter that serves an awesome burger, and instead I get an average run of the mill sandwich, served by an unnecessary waitress, in the most obnoxious setting possible. If I had no other burger options around, this wouldn’t be a cringe worthy choice, but with so many other options within less than a quarter mile of this Steak ‘n Shake (Sonic, Wendy’s, BK, McDonald’s, Red Robin, Hardee’s, Foster’s Grille, and finally Five Guy’s), I just can’t see myself eating here again. Maybe I should have tried a shake?