Shake Shack on the Upper West Side - An Operational Abomination

Here is a complaint I sent to the famous hamburger blog A Hamburger Today...

To Mr. Burger-

This morning I write you for the first time to vent my utter disgust with how poorly designed and run the Upper West Side Shake Shack truly is. It should be known that I am a true Shack-lover and have professed my deep admiration for these sumptuously salt-crusted burgers before. That said, yesterday was my first experience at the new Shake Shack at Columbus and 77th.

What an abomination.

Not because of my double Shackburger, which was certainly enjoyable (at least initially), but the absolute mess of an operation this place is.

I just could not get over how logistically incompetent this spot was. The majority of the main room is designed to snake the line of people back and forth 3 times before getting to the counter to order. Once there, and your order is completed, in traditional 'shack fashion, you wait for your buzzer to go off to let you know your order is ready. Unfortunately, there is no place to wait. The waiting area is the butt-end of the line for people waiting to order, and to complicate things, they put the condiments station right by the last register at the counter, creating an orgy of mayhem and mishaps that completely and utterly ruined my dining experience. Strollers, packs of kids, people juggling trays, employees trying to get to the overflowing garbages. Just a mess.

The confluence of this one area is so terribly thought out that you literally cannot move in either direction without running the risk of bumping into someone looking to get on line, trying to grab more napkins, or budging through the queue of people to retrieve his order at the counter. It is total chaos to say the least.

Of course if you survive this agonizing 10 minutes, you are rewarded with a comely cradle of shacktastic goodness just asking to be devoured as soon as you take your seat. Its simple beauty and close resemblance to its downtown Madison Square Park-borne cousins may very well be worth your troubles. Piping hot, steeped in a gooey miasma of cheese and pucker-punched shack sauce, the excitement of imminent consumption makes everything all better as you make way to your seat. Hot and scrumptious, and so fulfilling, this is the reason you brave the crowds and tackle the shackburger.

Now if only you could actually sit down and eat it.

As bad as the set-up may be for receiving and corralling customers waiting for food, the seating arrangements are categorically worse. There are only two options, either try your luck at finding a seat at one of the picnic style benches in narrow sun-room to the right, or go downstairs to another dining area. Either way you're out of luck. Upstairs, you have to wait for a seat in the sun-room, while dodging customers coming in and out, as well as ducking left and right as people get their orders and go back to the condiments station. Discouraged by upstairs, you can head downstairs to window-less basement dining area where people seem to linger, and the line accumulates at the very base of the steps (working its way upward of course). I must've walked back and forth between the two 4 times, all while balancing my ever-cooling-off burger on my tray as to ensure I didn't lose it to the floor.

My buddy and I ended up eating on the ledge of the veranda on the steps before our companions were lucky enough to snag a table for us in the "sun-room".

Absolute chaos.

We ended up getting a table for four, but by then (and i'm talking about 25 minutes), the damage had been done. All the excitement, the anticipation, the inspiration involved with sitting down to one of these works of art was gone. The mass of people with nowhere and everywhere to go had divested me of every last ounce of appreciation for what I was about to eat, and eat in 1 minute mind you.

In the end, while I may have inhaled my burger handedly, I swallowed my pride begrudgingly. This is not the Shake Shack experience I've come to love and adore. This was something else. Some bastard step-child of another father struggling to find its niche within the family.

Let it be known, I still love the Shake Shack, and still would argue it is the most satisfying burger in the city, all around, but have to qualify that comment by further clarifying that in making that statement, I am referring only to the original Shack in Madison Square Park.

As the Ubereater, my job is not simply to eat harder, but to eat smarter. I am so inclined to voice my feelings here because I know Mr. Meyer and his restaurant group are dedicated to quality in food as well as experience. The UWS Shack possesses the former, but you'd be hard pressed to appreciate it based on the latter.

All that said, my torrid love affair with the shack will continue to thrive, though from now on, we will rendezvous only at Madison Square.

Regards,

The Ubereater
www.ubereater.com