Fast food burger restaurant Steak ‘n Shake announced a huge change to its famous shoestring fries, and the company publicly credited, in large part, the new Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the change.
Starting in March, all Steak ‘n Shake locations will cook their fries in beef tallow instead of vegetable oil. The company broke the news on X with a post declaring; “By March 1 ALL locations. Fries will be RFK’d!”
Tallow Fries now in Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma
By March 1 ALL locations. Fries will be RFK’d! pic.twitter.com/m3pVaulppW
— Steak ‘n Shake (@SteaknShake) February 25, 2025
Secretary Kennedy has been a vocal advocate for using beef tallow in cooking, often arguing that seed oils, commonly used in fast food, may contribute to rising obesity rates, notes Fox Business.
“These fries cooked in beef tallow – it’s crispier, it’s golden brown, it’s absolutely delicious,” said Steak ‘n Shake’s Chief Operations Officer, Daniel Edwards. “You’re going to love them when you try them. You’re not going to want to ever go back to the old way of doing fries. And it’s the authentic way, the original way.”
Edwards told “Fox and Friends” that “We’ve actually been thinking about this for a while. Our owner, my boss, is a man named Sardar Biglari,” Edwards said. “He called me one time and said you know, ‘Why should Europeans have better fries than Americans?’”
Edwards explained that Biglari’s love for beef tallow fries started when he visited Belgium as a child, where he had what he called the best fries of his life. That memory stuck with him, and for years, he wanted Steak ‘n Shake to capture that same taste.
Now, thanks to a new supplier capable of meeting their beef tallow needs, the chain is making the leap.
“We found a supplier that could finally do that for us, and he said ‘We got to do it, we got to do it everywhere.’ And so, we did,” Edwards said. “We RFK’d our fries.”
