Steak 'n Shake Moves $10M into Bitcoin Treasury After Lightning Payments Lift Sales

Steak 'n Shake has taken a deliberate step to put cryptocurrency on its corporate books, allocating about $10 million to purchase bitcoin — roughly 105 BTC at current market rates. The move follows the chain’s rollout of Lightning Network payments earlier in the year, a payments change the company links to lower processing expenses and a measurable uptick in in-store revenue. Instead of immediately selling crypto that customers tender, the company funnels those receipts into a designated Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and has now supplemented that flow with a direct treasury purchase. Operationally, management highlights near-half reductions in transaction fees versus card rails and reports same-store revenue climbing by roughly 15% in months after the payments upgrade. The operator also teamed up with a bitcoin rewards firm to promote bundled meals that reward customers in crypto, using incentives to accelerate adoption and capture marketing value. Compared with public companies that raise equity specifically to accumulate bitcoin, this restaurant’s position remains modest among corporate holders, but it signals a hybrid approach: payments optimization first, limited balance-sheet exposure second. Parent ownership has not committed to extending bitcoin exposure across its broader corporate strategy, leaving the program's long-term scale uncertain. From a risk perspective, holding volatile digital assets introduces accounting, tax, and price-movement exposures that will need active governance and clear reporting. Strategically, the experiment ties together customer acquisition, fee savings, and nascent treasury diversification; if the modest bet delivers predictable benefits, it could inspire peers in low-margin retail to pursue similar tactics. For now the allocation is both a practical payment-cost play and a promotional gambit, modest in size but disproportionate in signaling value as restaurants weigh fintech-driven operational changes.