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Steak and Shake, An Indianapolis Fast-Food Hamburger and Fries Chain with One Location Off I-95 in Fredericksburg


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I haven't been thrilled with the food at the Dupont location.  The original location was amazing.  But I still think that is partially a mid-western girl's longing for hometown food and I appreciate Danny Meyer's presentation of some hometown classics.  

Have you hit the Steak and Shake down I-95? :)

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Have you hit the Steak and Shake down I-95? :)

I've been here a grand total of three times, and the only favorable service experience I had was one night when I couldn't sleep.  I took advantage of them being open 24h and burned just as much gas getting down there and back as roughly what my meal cost.  During peak or slightly-off-peak time past noon this place is tragically understaffed and claustrophobic.  Also, that late-night visit cost me a bit more because a table of 5-6 high-schoolers or Mary Washington students were exceptionally noisy the entire time and - as far as I saw - didn't leave a tip, so I doubled my usual 20% to 40% for our shared waitress.  *I* wouldn't want to work as late as I was there.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good burger (not stellar), but never drop in looking for a quick meal.  They wasted space on a rear parking lot large enough to accommodate trucks and buses, but if you ever see one of the latter back there when you visit - do yourself a favor and don't bother.  You'll be sitting inside the place for a good hour or more, and that doesn't include the poorly-placed hostess' station location.  They should've nixed the drive-thru on this place, as it certainly gets priority over the seated customers inside, and added another 20 feet to the back half of the restaurant.  Then the waitresses wouldn't have two foot corridors between tables within which they have to hold onto and navigate with gigantic serving trays topped with burgers and shake glasses.

There's also a Sonic about 2-3 miles down from the Steak & Shake on the same road on the right-hand side.  Freddy's is also more than comparable for people living in or around Fairfax, even if they don't have the menu variety available and you don't get unlucky and have an entire salt shaker emptied out onto your burger.

Oh, and do yourself a favor when you wash your hands in the S&S bathroom and *don't* use the hand drier.  It sounds like a 747's engine on spool-up to takeoff, the sound reverberates readily in the heavily tiled room, it stays on for what seems like forever, and made a poor little kid *cry* the last time I was there.  *Very* poor design choice.

I also have a sneaking suspicion I know why Don put a smiley on the end of his post.

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The Side-by-Side shakes are what make this chain go.  Particularly when they're half price: 2-4 p.m. and 2-4 a.m., in most places.  Not much better on an all-night drive than a half-chocolate, half-strawberry shake in one cupholder and a tumbler of coffee in the other.

I will say another thing - much like Freddy's, unless you're watching your diet, you want to get at least a double at S&S to feel like you're eating more than bread and toppings.

S&S even tacitly recognizes this in their $4 menu -- which includes as one of the options a triple with fries.  They've got a 7 patty, 7 slice of cheese model for when you really want to minimize the bread, too.

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They refer to their burgers as "steakburgers," because of the cuts that they grind for them.

I really don't think that's good enough. A-1 steak sauce, according to their ads back in the 1980s ("My dear nephew, what is hamburger, chopped ham? It's chopped steak!"), turned hamburgers into steakburgers. It didn't turn hamburgers into steak. If I walk into a restaurant with "steak" in its name, I really kind of expect to be able to get a steak there. I think there's a truth-in-advertising issue here, and this whole chain ought to be shut down and the people behind it put in prison or shot.

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