He Protecc, He Attacc—But Most Importantly, He Miss Shake Shacc

Right now, counting the joys and privileges of life that the coronavirus has stripped away from us is easy.

So allow me to add another one to that list.

Never would I have imagined that I would miss going back to Stuyvesant High School. Even in all its stress-inducing, sleep-robbing glory, I miss talking with my friends. My brain, scarily enough, misses the mental stimulation. But my craving for social interaction or even an in-person education at Stuyvesant isn’t nearly as great as my cravings for what I can find just a couple blocks away from it: a gorgeous, mouthwatering burger from Shake Shack and a well-deserved reward during a lunch period after a stressful week. It is a reason to keep going, if I may, when all hope seems lost.

But thanks to COVID-19, I’ve been Shake Shack-deprived for about a month. The withdrawal symptoms ensue—I’ve tried to cope by watching Shake Shack and other burger-related mukbang videos while eating Korean-styled home cooked meals at home, hoping to trick my taste buds into satisfying their carnivorous cravings once more. I have yet to find that satisfaction. What I have found, however, is one conclusion: through my research across the expanse of the internet’s food reviews, mukbangs, and cooking videos, and even my own cooking, I’ve conclusively determined that Shake Shack creates the best burgers in the United States.

Starting off as a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park in New York City in 2001, Shake Shack epitomizes “The Empire State.” Within three years, it had become an established burger restaurant; fast-forward to the present day and it has over 275 locations. It remains one of the fastest-growing burger chains in the world; Shake Shack opened 73 new locations in 2019 alone and its overall revenue went up 29.4 percent since the year before.

But Shake Shack’s rise to prominence is unprecedented. When looking at other well-known burger chains, such as McDonald’s, which flexed a whopping 21 percent increase in share price in 2019, the recipe for explosive growth is relatively simple: marketing. McDonald’s investment in marketing, which was at $1.54 billion in 2018, helps bring in tens of billions of customers every year through television, radio, newspaper, and billboard ads; it even sponsors sporting events, ranging from the Little League to the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games. And it’s effective—even I’ll admit that an ad break on Youtube featuring a sizzling, cheesy Quarter Pounder® is guaranteed to have me drooling. Shake Shack, on the other hand, hardly invests in marketing. In fact, their entire marketing budget for 2017 was a mere $400,000. Despite that meager expense, they produced a revenue of $358,800,000—a return on investment of a staggering 89,600 percent.

This means that Shake Shack’s biggest priority is the quality of their food—nothing else.

According to Shake Shack’s website, patties are “freshly ground, never frozen, from 100 percent Angus beef that’s pasture raised, grain finished,” with “no hormones or antibiotics, ever.” Even their bacon, found on their SmokeShack®, is “100 percent gluten-free, MSG-free, [and] nitrite-free.” Shake Shack boasts healthy, sustainable, and freshly produced meat, an attractive feature for the modern burger consumer. According to Technomic’s 2015 Future of Limited Service Restaurants Consumer Trend Report, “high-quality, fresh food,” is the single most important factor for fast-food consumers.

But this isn’t unique to Shake Shack. According to their website, In-N-Out Burger, for example, a prominent burger chain from the West Coast, promises hamburger patties "using only fresh, 100 percent USDA ground chuck—free of additives, fillers and preservatives." The patties, like Shake Shack’s, are also never frozen. What makes Shake Shack’s burgers better isn’t just the meat quality—it’s the preparation.

It comes down to chemistry. Food experts and scientists have cracked the code: the secret ingredient to the beefy, umami-flavored explosion of the crispy, charred patties of Shake Shack is called the Maillard reaction, a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that gives browned food—the charred, sizzling crust of burger patties—its distinctive flavor. As expected, Shake Shack capitalizes on this reaction to the absolute maximum. They employ a “smashing” technique on their burgers, where they literally flatten their burgers on a flat-top grill with a patented “patty-smasher” to maximize the contact the patty has with the heat, thus intensifying the Maillard. Mark Rosati, Shake Shack’s culinary advisor, said, “The crust you’re developing is where all the flavor is.” The result is the iconic, half-inch thin, crispy, charred Shake Shack patty that has captured the hearts of millions.

The Maillard reaction isn’t just for meat—it’s also used on Shake Shack’s buns. Like In-N-Out Burger or McDonald’s, Shake Shack takes the time to toast their buns—but they feature a pillowy-soft non-GMO potato roll, as opposed to the conventional brioche or sesame-seed burger buns. According to Rosati, the potato roll is key to Shake Shack’s success—”with other buns, the longer they sit, they can get very, very dry.” The potato roll, on the other hand, "stays nice and moist.” Again, it comes down to chemistry: potato starch absorbs more water than wheat starch and helps retain it, ensuring that the buns don’t become soggy as you enjoy the burger. On top of that, Shake Shack makes a point to never slice the buns all the way through. They leave a "hinge,” preventing the delicious innards of the burger from slipping out the other end as you take a bite from it—an innovation that other burger chains have yet to top.

But one of Shake Shack’s most distinctive accomplishments is their vegetarian options—specifically, the ‘Shroom Burger. A vegetarian masterpiece that even a crazed, carnivorous burger-lover like myself can legitimately enjoy. According to their website, it is a “crisp-fried portobello mushroom filled with melted muenster and cheddar cheeses, topped with lettuce, tomato, [and] ShackSauce™.” According to Danny Meyer, the founder and CEO of Shake Shack’s parent company, Union Square Hospitality Group, the ‘Shroom Burger is only on the menu because “you would crave it even if you were not a vegetarian.” Hailed by countless food review platforms like Tripadvisor or National Public Radio’s “Sandwich Monday” as the best veggie burger known to man, Shake Shack’s ‘Shroom Burger has yet to find competition that comes close to its success. Most burger chains that offer vegetarian burgers at all feature the “Impossible Burger,” a vegetarian patty that in recent years has been met with increasingly fierce criticism. Chains like In-N-Out Burger or McDonald’s don’t even offer vegetarian patties—their vegetarian burgers are just their regular burgers without the patties. In its ingenious creativity, Shake Shack holds the indisputable first place in vegetarian burgers. Seriously—a stuffed, fried mushroom burger that explodes with cheese with each bite? Is that even a question?

Alas, it seems that the biggest problem with Shake Shack’s burgers is that there simply isn’t enough of them. Though it is one of the fastest-growing burger chains, Shake Shack remains relatively tiny in size in comparison to more well-known franchises like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, or even the west coast exclusive In-N-Out Burger. Especially where I live, in Bayside, Queens, a burger from Shake Shack is somewhat of a rare commodity. There are none nearby enough to easily travel to, and I’ve never been able to consistently indulge in it—until my freshman year at Stuyvesant, that is. Oh, glorious Battery Park City. You've allowed me to engorge myself at Shake Shack at an artery-clogging frequency.

But since February, because of the Coronavirus pandemic, not only is eating in at a Shake Shack no longer possible, but Shake Shack’s shares are down 51 percent—unfortunately, for now, its expansion seems to be on hold.

In the name of my sanity, may the quarantine come to a brisk end. I wish everyone the best of luck—stay safe, stay happy, and remember the Shack.