🍔📈 Burgers, Bonuses, and Bitcoin: How Steak ’n Shake Turned Crypto Payments Into a Sales Surge

Nine months after quietly introducing Bitcoin as a payment option, Steak ’n Shake says the gamble is already reshaping its business.

The company revealed this week that same-store sales have risen “dramatically” since it began accepting the world’s largest cryptocurrency, signaling one of the most unusual real-world retail experiments in digital assets—and one that appears to be working.

What started as a novelty—teased last May and rolled out shortly after—has evolved into something much deeper than a marketing stunt.

Rather than converting incoming crypto payments into cash, Steak ’n Shake routes them into what it calls a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, effectively treating customer purchases as a long-term treasury asset.

“We have combined a decentralized, cash-producing operating business with the transformative power of Bitcoin,” the company said in a statement.

That reserve has also been used to fund employee incentives, blending day-to-day restaurant operations with a balance-sheet strategy more commonly seen in tech firms than burger chains.

The company’s parent, Biglari Holdings, has steadily increased exposure to Bitcoin as part of the initiative.

Key milestones in the rollout include:

The holdings sit roughly 26% below their average purchase price, underscoring that the strategy is not a short-term trade but a long-term allocation.

In perhaps the boldest move, the chain began distributing Bitcoin-denominated bonuses to hourly workers.

Employees receive about $0.27 in crypto per hour worked, structured with a two-year vesting period—a compensation model more reminiscent of Silicon Valley equity grants than the restaurant industry.

The approach links staff rewards directly to the long-term performance of the company’s digital reserve.

Vineet Budki, CEO of Sigma Capital, called the model a rare example of a traditional business integrating Bitcoin without turning itself into a crypto proxy.

“This is what a real digital asset treasury model looks like,” Budki said, contrasting it with firms whose valuations rise and fall purely with cryptocurrency prices.

His argument: mainstream adoption will likely come not from crypto-native startups but from established companies treating Bitcoin like a balance-sheet asset—akin to digital gold—rather than their core product.

Not everyone is convinced the model will scale easily.

Samuel Patt, co-founder of op_net, noted that merchant demand for Bitcoin payments has declined overall, making Steak ’n Shake something of an anomaly.

For broader adoption, he said, the ecosystem will need:

Still, Patt acknowledged that large consumer-facing brands proving Bitcoin works operationally could create a template others eventually follow.

Steak ’n Shake’s experiment hints at a different path for Bitcoin in corporate America—less about speculation and more about integration into everyday commerce and treasury management.

If replicated, the model could redefine how companies think about:

At a time when many companies remain cautious about cryptocurrency, Steak ’n Shake is doubling down—tying sales, treasury management, and employee compensation to a digital asset still viewed by many as experimental.

Whether it becomes a blueprint for corporate adoption or remains a quirky case study, one thing is clear:

The intersection of burgers and blockchain is no longer theoretical—it’s ringing up at the register.