For many retailers success or failure has to do with timing. These restaurants sit in between fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and casual dining restaurants like The Cheese Cake Factory. The casual part comes from the fact that fast casual restaurants do not offer full table service.

Elevated means higher quality food made from fresh, natural ingredients. These restaurants cater to consumers who want to grab a burger on the go but want an elevated version of it. The other trend Shake Shack helped to popularize is the rise of fast casual restaurants. The fast food industry has also taken a while to catch up with McDonald’s only starting to make burgers using fresh beef patties in 2018. Walmart, for example, became the largest seller of organic food in the United States in 2015 more than a decade after the first Shake Shack opened. While eating organic foods for many is a way of life now it took a while before it would become mainstream. Since the hot dog stand was so popular Meyer decided to bring the stand back to the park for two more summers before deciding to open the first Shake Shack location in Madison Square Park in 2004.Ģ. Find the white space. One of the reasons Shake Shack took off is because there weren’t a lot of similar options at the time. Shake Shack focused on serving fresh, natural food (without hormones or anti-biotics), often derived from locally sourced ingredients. Shake Shake’s founder Danny Meyer set up the hot dog stand as part of a revitalization project for Madison Square Park with all sales being funnelled back into the park. The stand didn’t even serve Shake Shake’s now signature hamburgers but it was a runaway success with long lines of customers often waiting two to three hours to be served.

If you are curious about how Shake Shack became a household name, then consider how it has grown over time.ġ. Don’t underestimate small beginnings. Shake Shack famously started off as a small hot dog stand in Madison Square Park in New York City in 2001. Shake Shack may not have the sales or reach of a McDonald’s but it does have a place in the hearts of millions of consumers. Behind every great brand is a great success story and Shake Shack is no different. The fast casual restaurant chain which brought in $522.9 million last year has figured out how to carve out a stake in the highly competitive food service industry.

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