Steak ‘n Shake says its decision to accept bitcoin payments has contributed to double-digit same-store sales growth across the burger restaurant chain.

The Indianapolis, Indiana-based franchise wrote on X on Tuesday that it had recorded double-digit same-store sales growth since beginning to accept bitcoin in May 2025. The company added that franchise-partner same-store sales increased 19% in the latest quarter. Same-store sales, a standard retail metric, track performance at locations that have been open long enough for period-to-period comparison.

“Ever since we started accepting Bitcoin in May 2025, we have achieved double-digit same-store sales growth! And this quarter has been extraordinary, with franchise-partners same-store sales gaining 19%,” Steak ‘n Shake wrote. “Come have a Bitcoin burger and Bitcoin shake to celebrate!”

The company began accepting bitcoin payments last year through the Lightning Network, a layer-2 payments protocol built on bitcoin that settles transactions quickly and at low cost, making it suited to point-of-sale use. It also said it would add the cryptocurrency to its balance sheet, a move that placed the burger chain among companies holding bitcoin in corporate treasury reserves, and announced in January that it had placed $10 million in bitcoin into a strategic reserve.

In April, Steak ‘n Shake Chief MAHA Officer Michael Boes told attendees at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference that bitcoin had become a core driver of the chain’s business performance. Same-store sales rose 11% quarter over quarter in the second quarter of 2025 and accelerated to 15% in the third quarter, according to Boes, exceeding growth at major rivals including McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Domino’s.

Boes described the result as the highest same-store sales growth among restaurants in the industry, attributing it to bitcoin payments over Lightning being cheaper and faster than traditional electronic payment methods.

When customers pay with bitcoin rather than a credit card, Steak ‘n Shake saves roughly 50% on processing fees, the company has said. Traditional credit card processors charge merchants between 2.5% and 3.5% per transaction. For restaurants, where sales come in high volumes of small-ticket orders, processing fees are a recurring operating cost that accrues across every transaction.

“Bitcoin is real money made with real energy,” Boes said at the time.

Steak ‘n Shake also considered accepting other cryptocurrencies last year, but abandoned the idea after an X poll indicated that users believed bitcoin alone was sufficient.

Tuesday’s post did not include updated figures on the bitcoin reserve since January, leaving the chain’s upcoming quarterly results as the next checkpoint for how its bitcoin-linked performance develops.