Steak 'n Shake's MAGA makeover is a desperate bid to save a dying business
Steak 'n Shake has jumped on the Make America Healthy Again bandwagon in a desperate last-ditch effort to resuscitate its finances. The chain's gratuitous pandering to red-state America will go down as a sad final act for a storied restaurant chain.
Indianapolis-based Steak 'n Shake is not only adopting MAHA-approved ingredients — beef tallow for the fries and cane sugar for the soda — but also coordinating with the Trump administration and expanded MAGA universe to create the most right-coded infomercials this side of MyPillow and gleaming gold coins.
'We RFK'd the fries,' Daniel Edwards, Steak 'n Shake's chief operations officer, boasted to Fox News in February.
That's, of course, a reference to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., America's top health official, who opposes vaccines but says, "Hell, yeah!" to Americans mainlining soda and fries. RFK Jr. appeared on "Hannity" to eat Steak 'n Shake's shoestring fries, an explicit endorsement of fast food as a path to better health.
Opinion: Make Indiana Healthy Again is about cost-cutting, not wellness
RFK Jr.'s ascent to a position of health authority is a culmination of America's doing-my-own-research era. Steak 'n Shake is happy to glom onto it in a play to find a market for its waning products.
Better ingredients, same junk food
I should note there are merits to both beef tallow and cane sugar. Many skilled chefs prefer to cook with beef tallow because it cooks better at high temperatures and generally tastes better. Cane sugar likewise fares better in taste tests and it is less processed than alternatives including high-fructose corn syrup.
But here's the thing. Fries are fries and sugar is sugar. If you overeat at Steak 'n Shake, you can expect similar health outcomes to overeating at any other fast-food joint. Steak 'n Shake is not becoming a health-food restaurant. It's introducing these products as a business decision.
And for good reason. Steak 'n Shake has closed 200 restaurants since 2018. Parent company Biglari Holdings Inc. disclosed an interesting nugget in its first-quarter earnings report: Customer traffic continued to fall at Steak 'n Shake, but same-store sales increased by 3.9%.
Therein lies the financial power of MAGA.
The MAGA premium
By tapping into politics, Steak 'n Shake is extracting more money out of fewer customers who feel like they are doing their part in the culture war by RFKing their diets. Steak 'n Shake's food costs went up this year because of the switch to beef tallow, according to the earnings report. Customers are paying a premium to dine from a menu that fits their political orientation.
There's a risk that appealing to MAGA will alienate other customers. But most Steak 'n Shake locations fall in Trump-friendly states (although it does have dozens of locations in blue-state Illinois). Steak 'n Shake's well-publicized pivot to MAGA likely is improving the chain's short-term outlook.
The long term is another matter.
Short-term gain, long-term pain
President Trump will leave office, media coverage will dissipate and the novelty of "Make Frying Oil Tallow Again" merch and consuming 2,000-calorie meals to own the libs will fade. When that happens, Steak 'n Shake will fall right back to where it was before: a brand lacking identity and lost in the shuffle of competitors with more premium products.
Opinion: Trump-backed cane sugar Coke tastes different, but health benefits are a myth
My guess is that Steak 'n Shake's cynical alignment with America's anti-vaxx crusader will afford the chain two to three years of relative stability before it runs out of steam. After that, Steak 'n Shake's descent toward obsolescence will resume and store closings will accelerate.
I'm not cheering for Steak 'n Shake's demise. I have fond memories of meals and late-night study sessions. I was under no illusions about the products. I was there for the greasy food, caffeine and sugar high.
Now, Steak 'n Shake is selling its customers on a lie. That rarely ends well for any business.
Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X and Bluesky at @JamesEBriggs.
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