My Kitchen My Table

Shake Shack

Who would believe that New Yorkers would stand in line for 1+ hours for a burger, fries and shake? This I had to see for myself so I plugged the address into my iPhone, got the walking directions from my Times Square hotel and started out to Madison Square Park, home of the original Shake Shack. I entered the park and at first, the line didn’t strike me… and then…. I saw it…. In fact, on the website, there is a Shack Cam that helps diners “plan accordingly”.
the line wrapped around one side of the park and there was a steady flow of people queuing up.

I took my place and pulled out Vanity Fair to read about Jessica Simpson and the tell-all interview with Bernie Madoff’s secretary and prepared to wait. There was a party of 6 friends behind me who had been before and this time they had come with beer. I had been told that it could take anywhere between 20-60 minutes to reach the front of the line and with the warm night of perfect weather it was looking like the longer side of 60.

With a limited number of items on the menu, ordering is easy. I went with the cheeseburger, fries and a beer. 10 minutes later, my order was up and I had found a bistro table under a tree to enjoy the fare.

Apparently people like to feed fries to squirrels because there were several running patterns around the tables looking for the most likely offering. The burger was good and so were the fries. I typically prefer thinly cut frites for fries and was slightly concerned when I saw the crinkle cuts sitting alongside the burger but they were tasty and nice and salty. Were they worth the >60 minute wait? Probably not again but for the experience, sure, why not.

When I got up to leave I checked out the line figuring it would have dissipated by then but to my surprise, it had doubled… did this mean the people at the end were in for a 2 hour wait? Only in New York….

mkmtEAT, mkmtGO | Comments (2)