A high-quality yet casual ambiance once compelled New Yorkers to line up for fresh food at restaurateur Danny Meyer’s hot dog stand in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park. Meyer’s message to customers in the early aughts was a fresh one: Get premium food from one of the city’s culinary greats—on your lunch break.
The hot dog stand became Shake Shack, an upscale burger shop exclusive to just a few locales. The slow build-up was sensational. With the element of exclusivity to its advantage, consumers lined up when a Shack came to their city. Eventually, Shake Shack found a place on the U.S. Stock Exchange and achieved global scale. But almost 25 years since its humble beginning in the park, the brand’s still evolving.
In 2018, it reached a fork in the road.
We decided we could do it in a way that was uniquely Shake Shack.
Jay Livingston, CMO, Shake Shack
As food delivery services rose in prominence and more consumers tapped into digital ordering, Shake Shack’s leadership team wondered if it was time to explore an operational model more centered on convenience. This sparked the brand’s first interest in investing in drive-thrus, but they faced the challenge of how to implement them without marring the brand.
Like many businesses that go through similar evolutions (see: Starbucks), Shake Shack had to decide if and to what extent it should hold onto its hyper-local legacy, at the risk of alienating customers who expect a specific buying experience.
“Shake Shack never thought it would do a drive-thru,” CMO Jay Livingston told Adweek. “We had been on record saying it would be so challenging for us, because [of] the way we cook our food from scratch, the way we really prioritize in-line hospitality and a guest experience.”
Sometimes market disruptions leave brands with little choice but to take a leap.
Come 2020, with the pandemic in full swing, Shake Shack took action on the idea it conceived a few years earlier. It built its first drive-thru in at a new Shack in Maple Grove, Minn., that opened in December 2021. The next year, nine more drive-thrus followed. The total now stands at 12, and this year the brand is planning to open 10 to 15 more.
“We decided we could do it in a way that was uniquely Shake Shack. So, we decided to move forward, and we decided to move forward very quickly,” said Livingston. “That pushed us into the place of saying, ‘All right, how do we make the experience great for our guests?’”
