Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by trainman »

storewanderer wrote: January 13th, 2023, 12:24 am Burbank (in-line) 2015-2020
Incidentally, this one actually closed just prior to pandemic lockdowns - it closed sometime during the first half of March.
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by storewanderer »

Well, the second Reno location with its "drive through only" and "out of shakes" on Sunday closed for the last time on Sunday night. Now I regret not going there on Sunday as I was intending to, but I just don't do this "drive through only" thing.

Monday the location just sat abandoned and didn't open.

This morning someone, probably the owner, but I'd never seen him before, showed up and posted the "STORE CLOSED" signs that have been posted at the other Reno location for the past month but didn't appear to really do anything else inside (all the cups are still on the counter, registers on, etc.), then left. The signs are taped with blue painter's tape so as to not leave a residue on the windows when they take the signs down (or maybe the tape used was just a coincidence, both both locations posted the signs with that tape).

So that appears to be the end of Steak N Shake in Reno.

Hopefully someone reopens the locations but I am not counting on it.

What a shame. "Drive through only" policy killed this business. This did not have to happen and should not have happened.

Also Reno Sam's Club needs to pull those $50 worth of Steak N Shake Gift Cards they sell for $37.50 now... guess I will deplete those some day... they are corporate issued cards fortunately, not local cards.
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: February 14th, 2023, 8:03 pm Also Reno Sam's Club needs to pull those $50 worth of Steak N Shake Gift Cards they sell for $37.50 now... guess I will deplete those some day... they are corporate issued cards fortunately, not local cards.
Not really any reason to do that - we have stores around here that sell cards for brands that don't exist in the area. Likely as people will buy them for gifts and send them to people who live in areas where they can use them.
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by storewanderer »

BillyGr wrote: February 15th, 2023, 8:44 am
storewanderer wrote: February 14th, 2023, 8:03 pm Also Reno Sam's Club needs to pull those $50 worth of Steak N Shake Gift Cards they sell for $37.50 now... guess I will deplete those some day... they are corporate issued cards fortunately, not local cards.
Not really any reason to do that - we have stores around here that sell cards for brands that don't exist in the area. Likely as people will buy them for gifts and send them to people who live in areas where they can use them.
A number of years ago one of the gift card providers cut in gift cards for Regal Cinemas at various stores in my area. Problem is there was no Regal Cinema within many hours. Christmas came and many not so well informed consumers thought it would be a great idea to buy movie theater gift cards and evidently not knowing what movie theater chain controlled all of the theaters in town picked up those Regal gift cards (Century at the time had all of the theaters, and didn't sell gift cards via retailers, they were aligned with that Fandango thing). In the weeks after Christmas, the number of and intensity of complaints was unreal. If it wasn't the people who received the gift card, it was the angry purchasing customer coming back. No refunds were even given at the store level so I don't know what ultimately happened.

This is why retailers should not sell gift cards for businesses not in the area. Maybe consumers are smarter now and it is okay...
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: February 15th, 2023, 7:00 pm
BillyGr wrote: February 15th, 2023, 8:44 am
storewanderer wrote: February 14th, 2023, 8:03 pm Also Reno Sam's Club needs to pull those $50 worth of Steak N Shake Gift Cards they sell for $37.50 now... guess I will deplete those some day... they are corporate issued cards fortunately, not local cards.
Not really any reason to do that - we have stores around here that sell cards for brands that don't exist in the area. Likely as people will buy them for gifts and send them to people who live in areas where they can use them.
A number of years ago one of the gift card providers cut in gift cards for Regal Cinemas at various stores in my area. Problem is there was no Regal Cinema within many hours. Christmas came and many not so well informed consumers thought it would be a great idea to buy movie theater gift cards and evidently not knowing what movie theater chain controlled all of the theaters in town picked up those Regal gift cards (Century at the time had all of the theaters, and didn't sell gift cards via retailers, they were aligned with that Fandango thing). In the weeks after Christmas, the number of and intensity of complaints was unreal. If it wasn't the people who received the gift card, it was the angry purchasing customer coming back. No refunds were even given at the store level so I don't know what ultimately happened.

This is why retailers should not sell gift cards for businesses not in the area. Maybe consumers are smarter now and it is okay...
OR maybe the customers are still just as unsmart, but that is, of course, their issue. One should know what they are buying and what is available in their area, but some people just fail to pay attention to things like that :)

Alternatively, make a note at the checkouts so the cashier, if they see someone with these particular cards, can let them know said brand is not available locally and thus have the customer think before buying it if they really want to do so. Certainly not required, but would eliminate the issue you saw in that situation.
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by storewanderer »

Seems the Reno news station that put a post on Facebook about the closing last week, the post generated 800+ Facebook comments. Usual posts on their Facebook are lucky to generate 20 comments.

Quite a lot of negativity on the comments. Unfortunate. The location was doing much better the past few months.

The franchisee of the location also commented asking them to contact him and he could "shine light into the closure" or similar wording. But as of yet I have not seen any update. I hope that post didn't get lost in the sea of posts.
www.facebook.com/KTVN2/posts/pfbid02gbu ... ?__tn__=-R
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by storewanderer »

Looks like 30 more location closures during 2022 - 24 franchisee and 6 corporate.

Also they only transferred 16 corporate locations to franchisees under their sell franchise for $10k/15% sales fee/50% profit split program.

https://www.qsrmagazine.com/fast-food/i ... -road-back

And for 2023 we have at least 3 franchise closures already:
Reno, NV-North Hills (early January)
Millersville, MD (February 7)
Reno, NV-South Meadows (February 12)

Well the two Reno locations are just sitting there closed, signs up, registers on, with all of the supplies inside, along with the "advanced production techniques" installed back in 2021 that this CEO talks up. Someone could go reopen them tomorrow if they could find employees... I am confident that Reno South Meadows unit based on my observations the past few months could be very profitable if they could be open inside 100% of the time but the employees just wouldn't do it. Place was moderately busy if inside was open but if drive through only (in which case they also didn't bother to turn the lights on in the dining room so the place looked closed) it was always deserted entirely.
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by storewanderer »

2017 build Reno location that closed 2/12 is now for lease. This should go quickly, excellent location.
All of the equipment is still inside.
In the listing flyer PDF on the lease website it appears there are auction tags on most of the equipment. However I cannot find any information on any upcoming auction.
https://www.colliers.com/en/properties/ ... usa1120211

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/470-S-M ... /28090768/

Too bad they couldn't figure out a way to sell the business as I think it could have continued as Steak N Shake profitably under different circumstances. It was not handled correctly since COVID hit, then was sold to new ownership 9/2021 that probably way overpaid for it, and despite making the transition to fast food format/adding self serve drinks/adding milkshake machine it ran as drive through only most of 2022 and killed itself and hardly had any customers looking dark/out of business. Location got much more traffic in late 2022 once reopening inside, obviously too little too late.

Not clear what is going on with the 2013 build in North Hills in Reno that was closed in early January, it is just sitting idle most equipment still there. Same drive through only thing for much of 2022 and killed itself from what I can tell. Pretty sure that did $2 million+ per year in sales before COVID, was a very successful unit. That building has been for sale since summer and supposedly has a pending buyer but it isn't clear how the closure of the business has impacted that as it was being sold for investment, not sold to be re-occupied.
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by storewanderer »

Highly recommend Steak N Shake in South Point Casino in Las Vegas- textbook pre-COVID Steak N Shake experience there. Was seated and had hot well made burgers and fries within about 6 minutes of arrival. Menu still has many good burgers like Mushroom, Jalapeno, Royale, etc. that have been discontinued at other Steak N Shake units. Menu also has shakes that are gone from other units such as a Strawberry that actually uses Strawberries (as opposed to syrup as other units use). Also this unit actually had Chili available and it was great. I hope they keep supporting this location despite that it is not following the post-COVID direction of the chain of limited menu/no servers. I believe it is the highest volume unit in the chain.

Also tried the only area freestanding Steak N Shake in Henderson. This location wasn't busy but there were a couple other customers present inside and at drive through. This unit is a mess and I actually did not proceed with purchasing a burger from it as I planned to, based on my observations while waiting for a milkshake which I won't go into because there were too many issues I observed. The shake, after I waited 22 minutes for it and they finally decided to make it, was excellent. I purchased fries after receiving the shake, which took them about 6 minutes to fulfill that order; cold, terrible, and inedible. No clue how they screwed those up. They had been made between when I ordered them and when I received them. Also their "small fry" is in a generic paper container like McDonalds uses for a small with no branding on it; glad this was only 2.29 but it was a poor value. Also the cups they were using for shakes were generic cups with no branding/logo on the cups. This unit is in a really nice part of Henderson and doesn't measure up at all to how it should be.

I found it interesting at both of these locations the milkshake is made out of hard scoop ice cream and milk and then blended in metal dish and poured into shake. The closed Reno units had a touch screen machine making the shakes with soft serve milk carton ice cream being used, and those machines had the Steak N Shake logo etched into the base of the machines.

The shakes in Las Vegas were a lot better (not so overly sweet).
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Re: Steak and Shake closing 57 locations

Post by storewanderer »

Closed Reno units continue to wind their way through a bankruptcy case and sit idle, lit up at night, with all equipment and various supplies still inside. Still some hope here they will reopen but I am not getting my hopes up.

Some items in the filing recently seem to expose the sales volume the units were doing.

There were 2 units open most of 2022. They seem to have been averaging about $3k in sales per day per unit through August. After August, that average changed to about $2.5k in sales per day per unit and later in the year it slipped even more. I am surprised they were even selling that much given they were drive through only during most of that time.
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