Indianapolis biz journal stands by Steak n Shake story

Business journalists at the Indianapolis Business Journal told Talking Biz News on Monday that they stand by the paper’s story about the moving of Steak N Shake’s headquarters out of the region, despite a company release stating the story was filled with errors.

In a release issued Monday, the company stated, “This week’s Indianapolis Business Journal (‘IBJ’) lead article printed as its headline ‘Steak n Shake moving HQ.’ The headline, along with much information in the article, is misleading.”

The release also stated, “We normally do not comment on published articles, and though we therefore won’t address the multitude of errors in this piece, we do wish to set one salient fact straight: Steak n Shake Operations Inc., the restaurant chain of 485 units, will maintain its principal headquarters in Indianapolis. Moreover, Steak n Shake’s parent company — currently named The Steak n Shake Company with plans to change it to Biglari Holdings Inc. — is headquartered in San Antonio, a move which occurred some months ago.”

Greg Andrews, the managing editor of the paper, said in an e-mail that, “We’re planning to address the press release in a story we’ll post on our Web site tomorrow morning.”

Cory Schouten, the reporter who wrote the story, added, “We all found it pretty ironic how they actually confirmed our story in their press release. The statement has a San Antonio dateline in reference to The Steak n Shake Co., and they confirm the parent company has moved. They also just updated their website, steaknshake.com, to reflect the new HQ address in San Antonio. Bottom line is Indianapolis has lost a publicly traded company.

“Biglari doesn’t return any media or analyst phone calls, and only communicates with shareholders once a year, this year in New York in April. I called again this afternoon to find out what they meant by ‘multitude of errors’ but again, no response.”