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A shish kabob is something completely different.
They can be made with all manner of meat of seafood, and more often than not, they contain vegetables as well as meat, cut in rather large peices, then ideally bbq'd or char-grilled, yes?
We have those here too, but it's more something you prepare yourself (we bbq a lot here), not too many places will sell them as such.

A "kebab" is another thing completely.
Traditionally it's of middle eastern (I believe right at the beggining it was lebanese, then the turkish picked it up and make their own styles....etc etc) origins.
There are a few different versions of this...one particularly NICE one is made with a particular recipe of marinated spiced meat called 'shawarma'. It's lamb, but you CAN do it with beef.
Get
(plain) yhogurt, lots of chopped garlic, some chillis + vinegar (or alternatively, hot sauce), diced onion, black pepper, cayenne pepper, a little salt, some chopped corriander, and some MACE (which is like nutmeg, and easily substitutable), olive oil, and some lemon juice...Make to your own taste preferance.
Slice up your lamb or beef relatively finely, and marinate it overnight.
When you cook it, cook it over a low heat under a closed lid, and for quite a while, allowing the meat to absorb much of the liquid.

Again, traditionally...you'd serve this on some kind've afghan or lebanese bread (more popularly lebanese bread, the big round flat stuff), with some

* chopped red onion in sumac

*Taboleh or tabouli
...which is a 'salad' made of diced tomatoes, burghul wheat (which you have to soak in hot water prior to crushing), chopped parsley,
white onion, chopped mint, a little olive oil, and lemon juice.

*Hoummous, which is a paste, or "sauce" made of ground chick-peas (which is another thing you have to soak in warm water overnight prior to crushing), garlic, paprika, lemon juice, salt, tahini (which is sesame seed paste, available in stores) and white pepper. Olive oil to consistancy.

Get your bread, throw it in the over for a while to heat it up (warm and soft, not cooked to the point of crispiness), get that out, spread a little hummous on it, throw on your tabouleh and onions, then your meat, and wrap it all up in a roll....That there's your classic kebab, aka "donner kebab".

That is, as I said...one of the originals.
Some of the ingredients may be already available in stores if you don't want to make them (hoummous and tabouleh are most likely at delis here and there)...but yeah, when you put it all together, very nice.

Of course, this in itself will probably NOT be what these folks are referring to by "kebabs" either...see, what I told you might be available in a lebanese joint, but there's a lot of other places that have come over here that sell a more "westernised" kebab...
Which is essentially either chicken or pepper-spiced processed beef sheared off a turning rotissierie, not generally very high quality stuff...but it's ok.
They'll put it in the lebanese flatbread or pita, along with plain onions, tomato, lettuce with optional cheese, and like, ketchup or bbq sauce...
SOME of these places will have tabouleh and/or hoummous available, but strangely enough, usually as an "extra" on top of their standard kebab.
These things are pretty good when you're wasted or drunk...but really a pretty far cry to a "good" kebab.
These ones are probably the most common, I guess they'd be a little easier to make?

Then there's the turkish kebabs...which are alltogether another kind've goodness...I haven't looked into their recipes, but they cook their meat/chicken over charcoal in different spices (One example is the "adana kebab", they use turkish bread, and have different vegetables such as chargrilled eggplant, cabbage based salads, and marinated tomatoes.
Generally the ingredients are of MUCH higher quality than the shops I mentioned above....These ones aren't around half as much. If you get the chance, I'd highly reccomend them.