Shake Shack review
Location:
There are currently only 5 Shake Shack’s in Shanghai, and they are all located in high-end malls or the airport, so they are destined to be pricy.
The one we visited is located in the Grand Gateway Shanghai Mall, which is a high-end mall with brands like Gucci and LV.
Ordering
Curiously, despite being a fast food restaurant. Shake Shack doesn’t sell any combos but only offers single items. As hinted before, the price is quite expensive compared to other fast food restaurants.
Thumbs up for the option of phone ordering. It lets customers make orders without having to line up and talk to the cashier, which saves time and helps stopping COVID-19.
Food
Waiting time of 7 minutes seems a bit long.
We ordered two “ShackBurgers” and fries. Nothing special at first glance.
Lets see if the hamburger have fever (wrong line)
Lets see if the hamburger is hot. 40 degrees. Not bad.
The fries are certainly steaming hot.
The burger weighs 180g, and the patty is 89g, almost exactly the weigh of two McDonald’s patty (45g) Seems great for Shake Shack, until you realize McDonald’s sell double cheese burgers for 1/3 the price. But quantity isn’t everything. Plus the 89g includes the stickiest cheese on earth and which refused to break away from the patty
Hamburger consists of a piece of lettuce, tomato, sauce, steak and buns (typical simple burger). The steak within the hamburger is briny and juicy, also containing the scent of the iron panel
The french fries were crispy and rich with potato flavor. However, it is not too oily when dipped in the ketchup sauce so the utility will be always rising when eating the french fries.
Authenticity
- Shake Shack deviates a bit from the fast food culture due to its emphasis on the quality instead of the speed of service or affordability. By our timer, the time from order until we got our meal was about eight and a half minutes, which is much longer than the serving time for a typical fast food restaurant. What Shake Shack emphasizes is the quality of their food, the transparency of their processing and better service to build up brand loyalty slowly.
Ambience:
Inside is a bit noisy. the ambiance noise is 70 decible, which is significantly louder than other places in the mall. there is an outdoor place which is a lot more quiet, but …. it can get a bit windly
Great hand washing with automatic soap, water, and towel outlet.
Exterior area to watch the scenery of the whole XuJiahui Area
Interior consists of bright tiles and some non-intrusive ads.
Music: mostly American country and pop songs
Service
- Employees are very friendly. When they saw us filming, they waved at the camera. Also, there was one standing outside to welcome and lead the customers.
- Employees will ask your Last name when you are having your order (and first name if neccesary) to avoid confusion.
- Customers can see the cooking process in the kitchen directly
Rating & Recommendation
We would recommend Shake Shack to the employees who happen to not have McDonalds of KFCs near the place they are working or just want to taste a better version of the hamburger.
Our group would give Shake Shack 3.5/5, which is because of Shake Shack's expensive price of its products. Moreover, its slow pace serving manners is not matching with people's fast pace of lives.
Price
In general, the price matches the price of Shake Shack in NYC. However, this implies they are more expensive in China, because the price level in China is lower, which makes the relative price higher. Moreover, drawing upon our memory, the Shake Shack in NYC are significantly larger in size. The total price of two shackburgers and one french fries was 129 RMB-much more expensice than other popular fast food brands such as Mcdonalds. This may be because of many reasons: Shake Shack is located in Grand Gateway 66, which means its rent is very expensive. It is also a very popular restaurant with great reputation on the internet.