Stop #50: Lebanon (#268)

On the Ides of March, Jen and I decided to make a trip to what would be the big 5-0 of Steak 'n Shake stops: Lebanon.


Jen was super-excited, because she had been looking forward to her opportunity to try one specific new menu item: the new 3D Grilled Cheese.


A 3D Grilled Cheese? Heavens! And to think I've been eating my grilled cheeses in just two dimensions, all these years!


I was also pretty excited, but noted that, both in the picture and in the actual sandwich, the name seemed to be a bit deceptive: there is quite clearly meat on this sandwich.


While I do love my meat, to me, a grilled cheese is a sandwich that contains, quite simply, cheese. No added nothin's, no extra fixin's. Cheese between two pieces of bread, buttered on the outside and perfect for grilling.

However, a description of the sandwich revealed that there was also a bit of frisco sauce added in the mix, along with the meat and three different kinds of cheese, so I got over my moment of slight confusion pretty quickly.


The verdict?

It's pretty good. Better than I expected, even. I hadn't known I was a fan of pepperjack cheese until this sandwich. I had known I was a fan of frisco sauce, but this confirmed it. It was delightfully tasty.

Jen also thought it was pretty good. And she made plans for when she would get her next one as we ate these ones.

However, enjoying the 3D Grilled Cheese (co-starring MEAT), french fries and a nutter butter shake was not the only reason I went to Steak 'n Shake that night.

I went because it is March Madness, and with my beloved Dawgs not in NCAA tournament this year, I was forced -- and then delighted -- to participate in another type of bracket competition: the 2012 BurgerBusiness Burger Bracket.

Steak 'n Shake was, of course, in the pack. But who might they be playing? And where could we expect upsets?

Jen and I got down to business.


Being a decent basketball fan who enjoys the official tournament and bracket challenge, I decided to use my knowledge of the "teams," likeliness of upsets, and (as in actual basketball bracket contests) general prejudices against certain locations and mascots to determine winners.

Jen went a more calculated route: the iPhone.

Dear Google, what is Umami? ...

It was actually pretty entertaining to see some of the match-ups. For example, a place called BGR, up against a place called Fuddruckers, whose name just makes me smile. A Burger 21 against Sonic, which didn't make sense to me because isn't Sonic more well-known for hotdogs? A place called Blanc Burgers and Bottles against a place called Meatheads, which I surely wouldn't eat at because who wants the head meat? An Epic Burger against a place called Umami, which I commented to Jen before she even looked it up sounded like an Asian place, which doesn't really jibe with burgers, in my mind.

And, finally, at least in my bracket, a Final Four match-up between Ray's Hell Burger and a place surely inspired by one of my favoritest movies ....

Yes, it is apparently a real place.
Sadly, I think neither Keenan nor Kel work there .....

Yes. Good Burger.

Of course, you had your obvious standards, too, like Cheeseburger in Paradise, Red Robin, McDonald's, Rally's, Johnny Rockets, Five Guys, and, of course Steak 'n Shake.

Of course, in my bracket, we all know who wins.

And for those who want a better look at all the match-ups, my bracket appears unobstructed by my pen below.


For the record, those "regions" are as the BurgerBusiness Burger Bracket set them out: named for some of the biggest names in burger chains in this country. I really have no idea how the seeding was determined, but there you have it.

And there you have it for Stop #50, as with the conclusion of filling out our brackets, so came the conclusion of our visit to Lebanon and our encounters with the 3D Grilled Cheese.

Stop #35: 38th Street (#33)

My bachelorette party, as I'm sure it's no surprise, resulted in some Steak 'n' Shake activity.

Yup. That's me, in full bachelorette party attire, getting excited about what I initially thought was the Steak 'n' Shake headquarters and later learned was actually the Testing Kitchen. Which I need to petition to get into because, seriously, how awesome would that be?

Of course, I did not get in that night. Come on. Bachelorette party. Who in their right mind would let me in?

Instead, I did what I've been wanting tod o for some time now: get drunk -- or, in reality, just a bit tipsy -- and go to the Steak 'n' Shake on 38th Street.

Of course, because it was the Steak 'n' Shake on 38th Street, and it was, as the sign above shows, 3 a.m., and as a result, I must have been lonely, huh?, Kyanne and I were a bit scared.

Emily, too, was frightened.

We'd all ridden the mechanical bull at Cadillac Ranch right after seeing another girl chip her tooth when she fell off the thing, and yet here we were, in the Steak 'n' Shake on 38th Street, scared and shakin' in our boots. Or heels, depending on what type of bachelorette party you think I was having.

So we tried to make it a quick stop. I got the Guacamole Steak Frank and fries, because on the night of your bachelorette party, it's like a requisite thing that everything must somehow come back to things of a phallic nature.

A typical bachelorette party.

Pictured: The giant penis (stuffed) that one bachelorette party brought to the bar.

Not pictured: The giant penis (balloon) that the other bachelorette party brought to the bar.

Also not pictured: My milkshake, which brings all the boys to the yard.

There, that's better.

Though my night was actually somewhat tame, in part because I'd asked Kyanne not to incorporate a lot of penises into my party.

Fortunately, Kyanne's the type of spectacular friend who knows when I don't mean exactly what I say. Because she presented me with the following card:

Which really only makes sense if you've read Hyperbole and a Half. Though, if you're reading my blog, you're on the Internet, and if you're on the Internet, you really kind of have to have heard of Hyperbole and a Half. Hell, half the time Allie is my inspiration. The other half of the time, she is simply hyperbole.

But I digress. The point is, a fantastic night of bachelorette party festivities culminated in a stop at Steak 'n' Shake that wasn't just any stop, but the stop that actually marks the halfway point of this quest.

As the sign says, "Oh-oh, we're halfway there. Oh-oh, livin' on a prayer."

And a Frisco Melt and cheese fries. Which might be why we need the prayer.

A Steak 'n' Shake Plot in the works ....

This post will not have anything to do with the tales of a recent Steak 'n' Shake excursion. Though I promise that another post is coming.

Instead, I want to use this opportunity to highlight what is probably the most epic conversation I've ever seen on the Facebook status platform (which is saying a lot; one week, I spent countless hours reading all the way from page one through page 189 on Failbook).

Most epic conversation ever, AND it involves Steak 'n' Shake.














































































An apology, because they're all individual images -- I couldn't figure out how to merge them into one once I got my screencaps. Also, I realize that they're too small to read without opening them individually. I apologize. I don't know how to fix it. If you do, please let me know. :)

Anyway, the epic awesomeness of this conversation is twofold. First off, apparently we're now going to possibly/probably have a pseudo-bachelorette party the night before my wedding. In Warsaw. At Steak 'n' Shake. I don't think there is any way to top that, quite honestly.

And secondly, if you actually read it all (I hope you did!), you'll notice that I mention having spoken with Brad Stevens. Yes, THE Brad Stevens. It was fantastical. And also slightly mortifying.

On the day of this particular Facebook conversation, we had a tornado warning for our area. So my student worker and I had to let everyone in the building know that we were under warning (for what few didn't know), and that they were encouraged to go to the basement (because college students sitting in a 90-percent-glass-walls building need to be told that in the event of a tornado, any above-ground floors are unsafe ... no, seriously, they apparently do need to be told).

So I took the second floor, and the first table I approached in the music quad contained none other than Brad Stevens.


Yes, that Brad Stevens, THE Brad Stevens, of Butler Basketball and Fear-the-Glasses Friday fame.

He was sitting at a table with three students, and I got to talk to them thanks to a tornado warning!

"Just to let you guys know, there's a tornado warning covering our area right now. It goes until 7:45, so you're encouraged to head to the basement until then."

I said this all with a pleasant smile that I only realized after the fact was probably creepy (" *GRIN* Hi there! Tornado on the way! Potential for much damage! Maybe you should go to the basement! *GRIN* 'Cause me grinning like this and pressuring you into the basement sounds totally normal!").

Though frankly, that's not what I'm counting as mortifying.

What I'm counting as mortifying is that I forgot to turn my phone to silence when I got in on this particular evening. That wouldn't have been a big huge deal, except that the university weather alert system now sends you an email, a text, AND a phone call to warn of inclement weather.

When I departed to share the warning news with everyone, I had only received the first two of these three.

And so it happened that as I finished grinning like a crazy person, telling Brad Stevens and Crew that the basement would be a smarter location for them, my phone rang.

And my ringtone is still the chorus from the Charlie Sheen "Winning" song.



So just as I turned to step away and tell the next table of kids that, that blared out of my phone. While I was still right next to their table.

And now Brad Stevens thinks that I-I-I-I-I bang seven gram rocks, 'cause that's how I roll.

*sigh* Totally NOT winning.

On the other hand, it was probably marginally better than if I had had, say, "Too Big Yo" as my ringtone instead.

And yes. I just spent a good chunk of a Steak 'n' Shake Quest blog post talking about my brush with celebrity. However, it started with a conversation about Steak 'n' Shake, the night before my wedding, in Warsaw. Which would not only be winning, but would be EPIC winning.

Stop #16: I-69 & 96th Street, Indianapolis (#261)

Stop #16 actually may well have been in Fishers, instead of Indianapolis. I'm not entirely sure where, up there, Indianapolis ends and the suburbs begin. Unless it's Carmel, where it is apparently mandated that all buildings be made of brick, including such places as Best Buy, Burger King, and the doghouse in your backyard -- which is the only reason I can tell I'm in Carmel.

That brick Steak 'n' Shake will be a fantastic one to visit, now that I think about it ....

Anyway, Stop #16 took us to the Steak 'n' Shake on 96th Street, just off I-69.


I was really excited about this stop because, first off, it was done without too much prior planning. Friday morning began the texting game, and when I found out my sister and brother-by-legal-standards were coming down to pick up a chalupa (technically, a chinchilla, but ever since first seeing one a few years ago when visiting me and my then apartmentmates' apartment and seeing my former apartmentmate's chinchillas, they have referred to them as chalupas ... so let's hope they don't eat the little guy, though it would be a good excuse to use his fur for a coat. Or, you know, a mitten, given that that's about how much fur you could get from a single chinchilla ....), I quickly got in touch to see if they'd want to meet at a Steak 'n' Shake on their way down.

Another reason this trip was exciting was that it marked the return of the Brett.

Brett was actually the one handing off the chalupa to my sister and BBLS, so it was handy to have the familials meet us at the Steak 'n' Shake -- they could then follow Brett to his apartment to adopt their new kid.

As a sidenote, since my sister and BBLS's current pet, Maybelle, is a puppy that I refer to as my niece, I suppose Max the Chalupa will have to be referred to as my nephew, meaning the Chalupa that would have previously referred to Brett as "Daddy" is now somewhat my relation, if you include animals in such figurings, which I clearly do ... Brett, does this mean we're related? If so, I'm scared.

Anyway, my sister and BBLS were tired.


After all, they had spent a good chunk of the day driving. I suggested we meet at this Steak 'n' Shake because it was on their way down from Fort Wayne THE REGION OBVSLY GUYZ CUZ THAT'S TOTES WHERE I'M FROM! I found out later that they had actually come down earlier in the day with a plan to blow their tax refund on a new toy.


It is a helicopter. And clearly, Max the Chalupa needs to be afraid. Because it is chalupa-sized.

At any rate, they went to Circle Center Mall to pick this thing up, then backtracked back north for Steak 'n' Shake, only to head back to the Broad Ripple area to pick up their chalupa.

It was a fun trip to the Steak 'n' Shake though. For BBLS, it was the first time he participated in the anagram game.



Apparently, to him,

LAL UYO NCA TEA KENPCAAS!

actually means

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

No one tell him that the letters don't actually match in, in either types or number ....

What you say?

For those that don't get the reference (like Fiance, who shames me sometimes with his lack of knowledge ....), this knowyourmeme site can explain, and the second video down is a fantastic source.

Speaking of Internet memes that people should know yet don't, Brett is as yet unacquainted with the wonder that is Antoine Dodson. Brett, have a couple videos. I promise they're better than "Friday."

Original newscast:

And the fantastic musical version:

You have now been cultured to catch up with the summer of 2010. You're welcome.

Speaking of culture, we were unfortunately sitting near a group of high school kids (I'll take things that are unrelated for 200, Alex ... "What is a need for a smooth transition in a blogpost?"), which caused a bit or a lapse in maturity at our own table when BBLS decided to illustrate his anagram with a "waterslide," which Fiance then decided to ... um ... phallicize?

SPOILER ALERT: If you have kids out and about and near the computer, you may want to put them away at this moment.


Maybe I should be concerned about what Fiance is keeping in his pants. I'm not sure any human appendage is supposed to look like that. And if one does, the owner of said appendage may need to seek medical attention.

Eventually we got our food and ate it (a salad with French dressing, a fish sandwich, cheese fries, and a very berry strawberry milkshake for me; for the record, likely the LAST fish sandwich of the quest, as Friday was Good Friday and thus the last Friday of Lent), and were content.

Well, we were sort of content.


We were sort of faking for this picture, because we were a little less than super-excited about our service. Some things were forgotten, some things took too long, and some refills never came. I'm not really one to complain, which is probably why it's a good thing I've got Fiance around, 'cause when the manager stopped by the table, Fiance let him know the troubles. Though I've got to say, I worry Fiance gets harsh sometimes -- having been a server, I think he has higher standards. However, the manager was very friendly and apologetic, and that made up for it for me. What can I say? I'm easy to please.

And so ended our Stop #16 in this awesome quest of awesomeness.

Stop #12: 71st & Binford, Indianapolis (#142)

Stop #12 in this quest ended up being a stop just off Binford Boulevard in Indy, on March-24-or-March-25-depending-on-how-you-look-at-it.


Sadly, for the first time, Brett had to miss a trip. He wasn't feeling well.

So it was just me and Molly.

It was also nearly immediately following the Bulldogs' victory over Wisconsin. Thus the "GO BU!" on the sign.


They not only went to the Sweet Sixteen, they won their game there. So there was cause for excitement.

Of course, Molly and I don't get as much time to hang out and talk anymore now that we're not roomies, so in addition to talking about how adorable and awesome some ALL of the Butler basketball players are (over cheese fries and a Cherry Coke for Molly and a fish sandwich and fries for me), we got to catch up on such awesome topics as "Glee," vacations and the TSA, and, last but not least, how today is Thursday, and tomorrow is "Friday, Friday, Friday."



That is to say, we talked about Rebecca Black and this song she did that is pretty much atrocious. Though I'd like to make clear, I don't really think she's so awful, as the people at Ark Music Factory who actually wrote the song and then sold it to her for production. I actually kind of like her for saying she would donate the proceeds from the sale of the song to Japan relief efforts. Kinda makes me want to buy the track, even if all I do is drop it in my recycling bin afterward.

Plus, if you ask me, worse things have happened to the music industry. See: Ke$ha. See also, about 300 times more: Kim Kardashian. And as far as popular music goes, I would almost put Rebecca Black on par with Enrique Iglesias and his most current music -- both have melodies that are infectiously catchy with words that make you want to kick puppies. Seriously, now that I think about it, I might actually be more irritated with Enrique Iglesias right now, because the lyrics to such current hits as "I Like It" and "Tonight" are only moderately better than the lyrics to "Friday," but the music itself is even MORE infectious. I hate those lyrics and actually like those songs, so I'm forced to find myself driving along in Daisy St. Patience and singing along with "My girlfriend's out of town and I'm all alone, your boyfriend's on vacation and he doesn't have to know" and "Baby I like it! The way you move on the floor. Baby I like it! Come on and give me some more."

And damn. Now I have Enrique stuck in my head. That's exactly what I need right now ....

Other than the negative topics discussed Thursday night, I really enjoyed the Steak 'n' Shake on Binford. As least, the layout of the building. In part 'cause it seems to have some remnants of what inspired the "In Sight Must Be Right" slogan they've got. The bar is super-long and set up so that you can see them back there cooking, if you want. Even though we didn't sit where we could see them cooking our meat (or the non-meat, in my case), it was cool to look at the area.


And so we concluded the night with the "group pic" (containing all two of us) in front of that bar. Bonus points, we got the server and cook in the background, apparently.