SCHERERVILLE, Ind.-An American flag big enough to cover two school buses flaps over a Steak 'n Shake location southeast of Chicago. Payment systems take bitcoin, and for customers who pull up in Teslas, there are free supersize fry upgrades served in gold boxes.
French fries are cooked in beef tallow instead of vegetable oil. The bottled Coca-Cola is sweetened with cane sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup, and the beef in the Steakburgers comes from cattle raised on pasture grass.
Since 2025, the Indianapolis-based chain has mounted an audacious turnaround strategy that embraces President Trump's brand of patriotism, and the Make America Healthy Again movement championed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Michael Boes, Steak 'n Shake's "chief MAHA officer," said the chain is responding to people looking for fast food they can feel good about. "This political movement didn't come out of nowhere, right?" he said in an interview.
Steak 'n Shake's revamp is led by Sardar Biglari, an activist investor and conservative figure who also owns Maxim magazine, insurance providers and oil companies. In April he hired Boes, a former Trump administration Health and Human Services staffer, to spearhead the chain's new MAHA push.
It is helping business, with same-store sales up 14% in the three months ended June 30 compared with the same period last year, according to filings by parent Biglari Holdings. Average restaurant visits per location at the roughly 400-unit chain grew 5.8% in the first half of this year, reversing a decline in 2024, according to location data firm Placer.ai.
The effort is attracting customers like Lexi Carman, who recently drove 30 minutes from Beecher, Ill., to bring her two kids and two nieces to the Schererville location.
"We were actually just here on Saturday," she said, as the kids munched Steakburgers and sipped milkshakes.
Steak 'n Shake's food costs have grown this year as a result of its investments in quality, the company said. Its overall profit has improved since 2024 but hasn't returned to 2023 levels, and some locations have continued to close. Boes said prices have moderately increased to offset the quality improvements.
For decades, Steak 'n Shake subsisted in the middle of the U.S. fast-food pack. The ingredient revamp helps it stand out without relying solely on discounts, executives said, and the chain is leveraging the effort to go after rivals, including in an X post targeting Five Guys in August.
"We don't claim to be a salad chain," said Boes, who said ground beef makes up about 75% of his diet and that he keeps in touch with Trump administration officials about Steak 'n Shake's efforts. "But I do think these foods in their pure form do have a health benefit."
'Taste the difference'
Some nutrition experts have been skeptical about whether many of the MAHA movement's food priorities do much to help human health.
Cooking with beef tallow versus soybean oil is one example, said Alison Steiber, chief impact officer for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. "Regardless of how you fry your french fries, they are still fried," she said.
Steak 'n Shake doesn't make health claims about grass-fed beef or tallow, but the company believes its customers feel better about the chain's food. "We just tell them you can taste the difference," Boes said while surveying the fry oil in the Indiana Steak 'n Shake.
Steak 'n Shake traces its roots to the 1930s, when Augustus "Gus" Belt bought a number of gas stations, including one with a restaurant in Normal, Ill. The town voted to go dry, so Belt switched to burgers and milkshakes from chicken and beer, grinding meat right in front of customers, sometimes sourced from his own cattle.
Steak 'n Shake over the decades expanded across the Midwest. But after changing ownership multiple times and with competition intensifying, by the 2000s the chain was struggling and running out of cash. Biglari, a young, Texas-based investor, built up a position in the publicly traded company's shares in 2007 and took Steak 'n Shake private.
By 2017 profit began to fizzle and then fell into losses. Steak 'n Shake closed around 200 locations between 2018 and 2024, with sales dropping by one-third to $760 million, according to market-research firm Technomic.
MAGA menu
Biglari in early 2025 made changes at Steak 'n Shake reflecting the new administration's priorities. Locations hoisted the largest American flags allowed by local zoning codes and served Patriot Shakes for the country's 250th anniversary.
Steak 'n Shake dumped vegetable oil-which Kennedy has blamed for fueling obesity and inflammation-in favor of beef tallow, and switched to Grade A Wisconsin butter versus a blend containing seed oil.
Kennedy has applauded the moves. Online, Elon Musk praised the chain. Steak 'n Shake began giving extra fries to Tesla drivers.
Biglari plucked Boes, who previously worked in the health industry, from the Trump administration. Frustrated with government work that included cajoling fast-food chains to remove additives, he said Steak 'n Shake offered the chance to show how a MAHA overhaul could work.
Boes launched a whirlwind restaurant and marketing tour, including a spot with Lara Trump at a Steak 'n Shake earlier this year.
Profit potential
At the Schererville location, franchisee Keith Mitchell said the transition has brought challenges and benefits. He now has to change the beef tallow in his fryer each week instead of every 10 to 14 days with vegetable oil. It costs more, and so does grass-fed beef.
After Mitchell offered samples of the tallow-cooked fries last year, diners started coming back for them. He hasn't taken many bitcoin payments, though one customer comes weekly for the Tesla promotion.
Mitchell, 36 years old, increased prices this year to help cover some of the new ingredients, particularly the grass-fed beef.
Boes said "MAHA moms" are helping drive Steak 'n Shake's sales, and he doesn't see that changing. He is focused on adding seed-oil free buns, a quest he said he discussed with Kennedy while they huddled at the June Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match on the White House lawn.