It pains me to give this Steak N' Shake a 2-star rating because I've been to it before when it first opened and it was great. My experiences at other branches have also been decent.
It may have been the fact that we went there around 1030pm and there were only 2 servers/hostess. There were plenty of tables, but we had to wait to be seated since many of the empty tables still had dirty dishes on them (still true after we sat at our table - they didn't clean the other tables off immediately).
The waitress, poor girl, was running around trying to get everyone. She acknowledged us, but then took another 10-15 minutes to come back and take our orders. The food arrived in a timely manner, but they only brought 2 of our 4 orders (missing bowl of chili and she totally forgot to put in hubby's cookies and cream milkshake). My mom and hubby were almost done with their meals before I got my bowl of chili. She was apologetic. Then I noticed the table behind us had been waiting to get refills on their drinks for a while and after a point, the lady went up to the waitress herself and asked for a new drink. She offered her a complimentary side of fries.
The only redeeming factor was the food. It reminds me of back in high school when we would go to Steak N' Shake late at night after a movie. They have delicious mocha shakes, chili mac, and the frisco melt. I liked how they added a variety of slider flavors and keep increasing their milk shake offerings. Their shoe-string fries have a nice crispy batter (and the portions are just right).
For a place that's opened 24-hours, they should consider hiring more staff to help on the floor. It was pretty busy that night. And please clean up the tables immediately after customers leave - it's pretty unappetizing to eat next to a table of dirty, used dishes.
Shoulda went to COOK-OUT across the street...