Steak ‘n Shake Stacks Record Cash While Nike Sacrifices Its Seat Among Wall Street’s Elite

Dylan Mulvaney's one viral Instagram video helped torch Bud Light's spot as America's top selling beer.

Nike gambled everything on that identical playbook, and Wall Street just made the company pay for it in full.

Steak 'n Shake is now stacking record profits while Nike quietly sacrifices its seat among Wall Street's elite.

Steak 'n Shake Ditched Seed Oils and Found a Gold Mine

Sardar Biglari runs Steak 'n Shake, and back in April he made a hire nobody in fast food saw coming.

He installed Michael Boes, a former senior adviser to the Trump administration's assistant secretary for health under RFK Jr., as the chain's first ever chief MAHA officer.

Boes ripped the seed oils out of every fryer and started cooking everything in 100% beef tallow.

He swapped high fructose corn syrup for cane sugar Coca-Cola and moved the chain toward a2 milk.

Steak 'n Shake committed to grass fed, grass finished beef and started tearing microwaves out of kitchens nationwide.

The chain even started accepting Bitcoin at the register, a detail straight out of the populist right's wish list.

President Trump saw the announcement and posted one word back: "Awesome."

Biglari has summed up the pitch in one line: "Good-tasting food should also be good for you."

Same store sales jumped 14% in the first half of 2026, and restaurant visits climbed 6% after two straight years of decline.

Nobody at Steak 'n Shake told half the country their politics made them unwelcome at the counter.

The chain still carries roughly $220 million in long term debt, but rising sales are the fastest way to make that number shrink.

Nike Finally Pays for the Kaepernick Bet It Never Walked Back

Nike picked the opposite fight back in September 2018.

The company built an entire campaign around Colin Kaepernick and the line "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything."

Kaepernick made his name kneeling during the national anthem, and Nike bet the country would forgive that faster than it did.

Then CEO Mark Parker defended the bet weeks into the backlash, saying Nike felt "very good and proud of the work that we're doing" and pointed to a bump in traffic and engagement.

The stock hit roughly $178 a share in November 2021 and has since collapsed to around $38.

That is a 78% crash and more than $200 billion in vanished market value, according to Breitbart's Simon Kent.

On September 21, Nike drops out of the S&P 100 after nearly 18 years in the index.

Dell Technologies and a handful of other tech firms take Nike's place on the list.

Greater China sales keep sliding, with the company's own guidance pointing to a 20% drop.

Direct to consumer sales are struggling too, while wholesale accounts Nike spent a decade trying to escape are growing instead.

CEO Elliott Hill has admitted the turnaround is taking longer than expected, telling investors "we still have work to do."

Meanwhile cheaper upstarts like Hoka and On keep stealing customers who never got lectured about their politics before buying a pair of shoes.

The Market Just Proved Who America Actually Trusts

This was never really a fight about tallow versus seed oil or sneakers versus burgers.

It was a bet on two completely different views of the American customer.

Biglari and Boes bet that people walking into Steak 'n Shake wanted better food and zero lectures, and welcomed Bitcoin wallets, MAGA hats, and Trump supporters through the door without a purity test.

Nike bet that Colin Kaepernick and the activist class mattered more than the dad buying his kid's first pair of basketball shoes, and spent seven years finding out how wrong that math was.

Anheuser Busch ran the exact same experiment with Dylan Mulvaney in 2023 and watched Bud Light lose its crown within weeks, proof this pattern repeats every time a legacy brand picks the activist class over the people actually paying for its products.

Wall Street does not care about intentions.

It cares about receipts, and right now the receipts show a 400 million dollar burger chain outrunning a sneaker giant that just watched $200 billion in value disappear.

Target learned the same lesson after its 2023 Pride collection backlash, and Cracker Barrel learned it again after its logo debacle last year.

Nike is the only one of the three that has never walked it back, and Parker's "proud" quote from 2018 is still standing.

Every one of these companies had the exact same option Steak 'n Shake took, and every one of them chose the lecture instead.

Sources:

• Ben Sellers, "The Best of Times, the Wokest of Times: Steak 'n Shake Fattens Coffers As Nike 'Sacrifices' It All," RedState, September 9, 2026.
• Fox News Staff, "Steak 'n Shake Aligns With MAHA, Creates Chief Officer Role for Healthier Fast Food," Fox News, April 21, 2026.
• Simon Kent, "Woke Nike Booted From S&P 100 as Stock Crashes on Dismal Sales," Breitbart, September 7, 2026.
• Fox News Staff, "Lahren: Conservatives Will Keep Boycotting Until Bud Light Acknowledges Mistake," Fox News, April 2023.
• Bloomberg, "Nike CEO on Kaepernick Ad Campaign: 'We Feel Very Good and Proud,'" Fortune, September 26, 2018.
• Benzinga Staff, "Nike CEO Elliott Hill Admits Turnaround Is Taking Longer Than Expected: 'We Still Have Work To Do,'" Benzinga, June 2026.
• CNBC Staff, "Nike Shares Fall 9% on Weak Outlook, Expected 20% Sales Decline in China," CNBC, March 31, 2026.