The MAHA Shake-Up at Steak ‘n Shake

0:04In many ways, Steak and Shake is like any other burger chain. There's fries, milkshakes, obviously burgers. Our colleague Heather Haddon went to visit one in Indiana a few months ago. It's on a strip of lots of other restaurant chains. You just drive along. It's chain after chain after chain. And inside. People grilling, people frying, flipping burgers, attending to the drive-thru. But in a lot of other ways, Steak and Shake is different. There's lots of branding within the restaurant that says, you know, 100 % grass-fed beef, 100 % beef tallow. There's the bottles of Coca-Cola that have sugar cane instead of high fructose corn syrup.

0:53So there's definitely a lot of branding there that shows that this is a different kind of restaurant. Giant American flags wave out front. There are Patriot shakes on the menu. Fries are served in gold cups. What did it smell like? Um, it smelled beefy.

1:13These changes are all aimed at capturing a new customer base. People who support the Maha movement make America healthy again. Yeah, I think all these changes from the beef towel to the grass bed beef is really about leaning heavily into this Maha universe and the consumers who are motivated to go out to eat based on it. So it is explicit in their branding, in their marketing, and some of this MAGA coding is their new target market. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Friday, September 11th.

2:01Coming up on the show, the Maha Shake-Up at Steak and Shake. Thank you.

2:35actually easy. You deserve less and more. Ah, Intuit Credit Karma. Download the app to get started. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremphaya, proper training is required. Tremphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

3:18Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremphaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TremphayaRadio.com.

3:50Steak and Shake has been around since the 1930s. Its first location opened up in the town of Normal, Illinois. It was founded by an enterprising couple named Gus and Edith Belt. Him and his wife purchased some fuel stations, and one of them had a restaurant, which, you know, back in the day was serving chicken, beer, that kind of food. And then Normal made a push to go dry at this time. And Gus Belt, who seemed like he was a smart entrepreneur, said, I need a new concept. That new concept was, of course, burgers and milkshakes. Almost everywhere you go these days, you'll find a steak and shake.

4:31Proof of the pudding of how popular steak and shake has become. Even from those early days, in some ways he had kind of a Maha bent because he would grind the beef at times right in front of people to show how fresh it was, that this was not just a normal burger. This was like fresh steak between buns for your family. In sight, it must be right. Steak and shake.

4:58Over the decades, Steak and Shake expanded across the Midwest with several hundred restaurants. The chain cycled through a string of owners. Then, in 2007, a new owner stepped in. His name was Sardar Biglari. So let's introduce our listeners to Sardar Biglari. He is a real character. He lives in Texas, in San Antonio, and from a very young age, he's been interested in investing. He is a real kind of American success story of self-made guy who was interested in investing in a diverse set of options. So he's been interested in restaurants, he's been interested in oil and gas and in insurance. So Steak and Shake was actually one of his first big investments.

5:49Things didn't work out as well as he had hoped, though. Between 2018 and 2024, Steak and Shake closed around 200 restaurants, and its sales plummeted by about a third. Big Larry needed a new strategy. How did he come up with this idea to lean into politics, and Maha specifically? He saw RFK come to the position he's in as leading HHS. The Department of Health and Human Services. Yes. Something is poisoning the American people. And we know that the primary culprits are changing food supply, the switch to highly chemical-intensive processed foods. And he saw an opportunity, and he went full into, let's look at bringing Maha-friendly products to this restaurant chain.

6:48Starting in early 2025, Steak and Shake began cooking its french fries in beef tallow, which has rendered fat from cows. This year, the company rolled out grass-fed beef at all of its restaurants. He also started bringing in, you know, some of this kind of more MAGA-coded elements like the big flags and the patriot shakes. Also, Steak and Shake now accepts Bitcoin. coin. He also struck up a little ex-relationship with Elon Musk and started offering some of these deals for Tesla drivers, giving them out like supersized fries on Tuesdays during certain periods in the afternoon. Biglari almost never does interviews and did not respond to our requests for comment.

7:34About a month after the company announced its new direction, RFK Jr. appeared at a Steak and Shake in Florida for an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox. The two of them sat at a table eating fries and burgers. And Steak and Shake just switched out. And people are raving about these French fries. You taste them, I taste them. They really are. Big Laurie also started getting into online political spats while using the Steak and Shake brand. Like when Cracker Barrel changed its logo last year. Cracker Barrel's new logo and$700 million brand overhaul sparking some backlash from customers and critics who say the company is abandoning its country roots.

8:15Big Larry is also an investor in Cracker Barrel. And last year, he used his platform to blast the rebrand. Stick and Shake taunted Cracker Barrel on X, saying the company had essentially become too woke. The burger chain even started selling red MAGA-style hats that say things like, Fire Cracker Barrel CEO. And Big Laurie was right about Cracker Barrel. You know, in some ways, Sardar Buglari and these others won because they did change the logo and their branding back to kind of what it was. Is Big Laurie a pretty political guy? Sardar Buglari has been what appears to be a Trump fan for a while.

8:57He's also the owner of Maxim Magazine, a men's magazine that endorsed Donald Trump in 2024, and has been, you know, generally sympathetic, it seems, to Republican causes. Not a huge donor, but donating to Trump and related Trump, you know, Republican causes. Biglar even hired a former Trump administration's senior advisor to lead Steak and Shake's overhaul, someone the company calls its chief Maha officer. Why this Maha overhaul might be harder than it sounds? That's next.

10:04We'll see you next time.

10:26Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support the show by saying you heard about Indeed here. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. Did you know that psoriatic arthritis may progress over time and could cause permanent joint damage if left untreated?

10:51Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

10:59Trimphia, Gucelcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away Explore the possibilities Ask your doctor about Trimphaya Tap this ad to see new joint data And learn more about Trimphaya Including important safety information

11:45Sardar Biglari met his future chief Maha officer At a wedding in Florida The ceremony was over and people were grabbing late-night food. There was a Steak and Shake food truck there, and they strike up a conversation, and lo and behold, Michael Bose leaves HHS, where he had been, and he starts working for Steak and Shake. Michael Bose. At the time he was working at the Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bose helped revise the food pyramid. Michael Bose is a very tall Texan, and very thin, who says most of his diet is made out of meat, which is sort of interesting in itself.

12:26But anyway, he had a background in private equity. He worked for various private healthcare companies. And he ended up working for HHS under RFK, where one of his tasks was to try to make Maha real in big fast food companies. So trying to convince big fast food companies like McDonald's, etc., to, you know, improve their ingredients, to make it more friendly for these kind of ideals they were interested in. And he found that very hard work. He told Heather about his frustration over the phone. If it was additives within the frying oil, whatever it may be. And again, we just kept getting the runaround.

13:11And it was always like, oh, let me check with my team on that. And my My argument to a lot of these other organizations was like, look, I truly believe that there's an economic value to make this change. Clearly, people want this. This political movement didn't come out of nowhere. Meanwhile, Bose noticed that Steak and Shake was making all these changes on its own. All the while, we're not talking to Steak and Shake at all. And they're just rolling out these announcements over and over again.

13:44And his title is really Chief Maha Officer? His title really is Chief Maha Officer, which if you think about is incredible branding. I mean, it just makes it so explicit what his work is. And I think, you know, when he was hired earlier this year, it was an incredible marketing moment for Steak and Shake because suddenly he was on Fox News. Tell us what a Chief Maha Officer actually does. We are bringing fast food to what it was years ago, what my parents grew up with, what my grandparents grew up with, and what I grew up with for a short period of time. Real ingredients, real food that everyone can trust and pronounce.

14:25Bose did a segment for Fox at a Steak and Shake with Laura Trump, where she cooked fries and worked the drive-thru window. Here you go. Thanks so much. Have a great day. This is Maha Steak and Shake now. You know that, right? He is very well-spoken. He's very charismatic. He's very good at talking about why they're doing this work and the importance of this work and that they believe in it. We want to get back to what humans have been eating for centuries, what tallow, meat, cheese, and bread, and no other added chemicals associated. While things like beef tallow and cane sugar are less processed, and many would say taste better, many dieticians say those foods aren't necessarily healthier.

15:07Big restaurant chains, including McDonald's, used to fry their food in beef tallow, but eventually they moved away from beef tallow in part out of concerns of heart health. So a lot of dieticians say that these kind of animal fats just aren't as good for you, relatively speaking, as vegetable oil. I think what dieticians would like to see in fast food is more apple slices and more whole foods, not just switching what you're frying your French fries in. So I think they would like people to consume fewer fried foods and not necessarily drink different types of soda, but drink less soda. What is the supply chain like for this stuff?

15:54Because restaurants have been using vegetable oils for so long. So those supply chains are well developed. But I imagine that's not really the case for something like beef tallow. The challenge is to do this kind of work and change your supply chain so radically is that it's really expensive to do. So we're going from really mass market food distributors and food suppliers that can provide big gallons of vegetable oil to smaller producers that can provide beef tallow. Having sugar cane Coke in bottles is just not as economic to offer for a franchisee as putting regular Coke through your soda fountain.

16:35It's just more expensive to provide these products. Coke made with cane sugar is typically only sold in bottles rather than as fountain syrup.

16:47Some of Steak and Shake's suppliers haven't achieved economies of scale yet. Bose's quest for buns made without using seed oil is a good example. Only now have they announced that these buns will actually be coming later this year in October. So this is, you know, months and months of work to try to overhaul one element of the product. And Michael Bowes has his sights on everything, you know, all the condiments, all the, you know, every ingredient he's looking at. And, you know, for each one, you got to make sure that people care. Like, do they really care about seed-free oil buns? We're going to have to see if that's a big motivator or not.

17:25How is this all working out for Steak and Shake financially? I think for Steak and Shake, it is improving sales, but it's also increasing costs. So in terms of profitability, it is better than where it was, say, two years ago, but it is not on fire, I would say. It is not shaking the whole fast food landscape with what they've done. And Steak and Shake is a franchise business like a lot of other fast food chains. So how do the franchise owners feel about these changes? So when I was in Indiana, I talked to the owner, Keith Mitchell, about these changes. First of all, he had not really heard of Maha before all this work started happening.

18:08But, you know, he's excited to just see that the chain is really taking a strategy and running with it and marketing it. And he sees his sales going up. And so he likes that. What if these franchise owners are not on board with MAGA or the Maha movement, though? I mean, these are, in many ways, controversial, highly political things. Well, then they'll probably need to find a new restaurant, because, you know, these, at least the products, are part of the franchise agreement. So they need to offer them as part of the menu. Steak and Shake's political overhaul shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the company just this week endorsed a congressional candidate because of his support for the Maha movement.

18:57What would this mean for Big Larry if this doesn't work out? This brand is important to his overall holdings. He has taken out a loan based on Steak and Shake's performance. So if this didn't work out, it would be really bad for his overall company. So he's placed a big bet on, personally, that his Steak and Shake moves are going to work. The real risk is that there'll be enough people coming to Steak and Shake to make these moves make economic sense. And, you know, that they won't have to raise prices a lot. You know, everything in food right now is getting more expensive. I mean, all fast food chains are struggling to keep their prices and price increases moderate.

19:46And when you're adding this whole new element to it, it makes it even more challenging.

20:03That's all for today. Friday, September 11th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Evelyn Fajardo Alvarez, Pia Gadkari, Max Green, Sophie Codner, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Jessica Mendoza, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhi, Jivika Verma, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamis, and me, Ryan Knudson. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Katherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Nathan Singapak, and Blue Dot Sessions.

20:45Fact-checking this week by Nicole Pasolka. Remember, we have another episode of our new special series, My Monday Morning, coming on Sunday morning. We'll see you then. The Viore Core Short moves with you. With everyday versatility and classic athletic fit. It's the one short for everything your day brings. Invest in your happiness and get 20 % off your first purchase at viore.com slash core20. That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash K-O-R-E-2-0. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Have you heard that McDonald's spicy chicken McNuggets made with spicy tempura and a blend of aged cayenne?

21:33are back. Remember to grab a few extra napkins. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. For a limited time at participating McDonald's.