Shake Shack DoBro 12-24-2011

Location: 409 Fulton St. BK

Time: 4pm

People: RB, CK and myself

Feelings: I must admit I never really understood the hype of Shake Shack. When I used to work on 23rd Street and saw Madison Square Park get a complete makeover with a cute burger stand, I was excited but never expected to turn into a phenomenon. Shake Shack may be the pioneer of the New York burger trend , but is it really worth waiting in line for hours?

The new Brooklyn outlet of Shack opened recently right in front of the office of the Brooklyn Borough President, Mr. Marty Markowitz. I keep seeing him everywhere in the neighborhood, almost uncomfortably often, but I suppose this will be another place I could find our delightful local official. If I were the Brooklyn Borough President, I'd make sure that a ramen shop and Alexander McQueen will open in my building. Vote for me.

Thankfully, on Christmas Eve at 4pm, there was no line, but there were plenty of customers gorging on the burgers at this spacious location. The music was rather loud and interfered with our ordering process, and we didn't particularly appreciate rudely being told "What? I can't hear you!" with Micky D hospitality.

We ordered vanilla and chocolate frozen custard ($3.25 for single), and a Shackburger ($4.55 for single) for RB. The texture of vanilla was ever so smooth and velvety, but the chocolate tasted chalky. Perhaps it would be a better fit for Concrete. RB's burger was quite tasty but not overwhelming.

For those of you who had enough of Shake Shack in Manhattan, this location offers some Brooklyn exclusive $6.50 Concrete with cute names: Urban Lumbershack (vanilla custard, fried Belgian waffles, bananas, bacon peanut brittle from The Redhead), Fudge-effaboutit (chocolate custard, cinnamon fudge sauce and chocolate from Mast Brothers) and Borough Precedent (vanilla custard, Early Bird granola and seasonal fruit).

This Shack is supposed to help revitalize the neighborhood of Downtown Brooklyn surrounding the newly formed Jay Street Metrotech area (They now call it DoBro), followed with H&M and many other stores that are on their way. It won't be long before DoBro resembles midtown. Not sure that is much of an improvement.