SHAKE SHACK

Shake Shack
Inside Madison Square Park
@ Madison ave and 23rd
(though line will probably be near Bway)


It’s a great day in NYC. Its Friday, the temp is currently 68, The DeLaVega fish are out, and of course Shake Shack is open!!!
Having the day off it only took me a few min to realize where I needed to go for lunch. I sent out some emails to put together a lunch crew and by 11:20 I was off to Madison Square Park.
At 11:35 the line was not too bad. It looked like a 30-40 min wait. I was expecting much worse. It was nice out, I had my dog and I didn’t mind waiting. 25 min later the line had tripled in size. Around 12:15 I was ready to order and my friends were on the way. After letting a few people cut the group arrived and it was time to order.
I went with the Shack Burger without cheese, the Chicago Dog, fries, an Arnold Palmer, and A Brooklyn Larger…yes it was a lot of food but this is cause for celebration. Before I get into the burger I want to bring attention to the Chicago Dog. I am not from Chicago, and I have only been 3 or 4 times but I am a huge fan of the Chicago Style dog and all its toppings. Unfortunately I have not found many (any) in nyc Here is the description from the menu:

”Vienna all-beef dog on a poppy seed bun. Drag it through the garden! Topped with lettuce, tomato, sport peppers,green peppers, pickles, onion, neon relish, cucumber,celery salt and mustard”

Of course the dog was great. It was all over the place. While places like criff dogs and F&G (is that what its called?) sell crazy hot dogs all of them leave out the large poppy bun!!! The bun is very necessary for a well topped dog…anything else just falls apart.

Ok and now on to the burger… I am sorry that my review will suck for 2 reasons.

1) I ate the burger too fast to even think about it
2) It doesn’t matter what I say because you will go anyway and love it!!!!

Ok anyway… The burger was better than I had remembered. Unfortunately it was still just as small but whatever get two and suck it up. Lettuce tomato special sauce great beef soft yellow bun what a combo…somebody tell New York Burger co its not worth opening up for the next few mo.
You can see from the picture that they could have maybe thrown on some more special sauce after grilling ..that looks like just mayo but still it was great...Grilled onions would have helped too.

The Big Question…is it worth an hour and a half of your time. I was asked that question like 4 times by people passing by and here is the short answer…MAYBE… haha what a cop out.
The burger is great, can you find a better burger with a shorter line…probably esp if you know a word that rhymes with “urger oint”. Would I wait an hour and a half to just get the burger and run it back to my office to sit at my desk to eat..No. If it was a nice day like today and I had time to wait 90 min to order and then another 45 to sit outside in the sun, eat my burger and drink a beer or 3…yes by all means not much could possible be better.

So go…but don’t go half ass. Go make a day of it, bring a book, some friends, sit out in the sun, eat like a pig and get a little tipsy…its not here all year ya know.

Type: slow fast food…outdoor eating Mecca
Price: Not bad at all
Recommend: YES YES YES




P.S Opie loved the scraps