The sour grapes from some neighbors and local restaurants notwithstanding, Shake Shack will officially open its first San Francisco outpost on Monday, February 3, and you may as well accept that you'll be hearing a lot of "Super Duper versus Shake Shack" debates in the weeks to come.
Shake Shack shouldn't be new to anyone at this point, really. The now ubiquitous burger chain from New York restaurant magnate Danny Meyer already has Bay Area locations in Palo Alto, San Mateo, and Larkspur. And chances are if you enjoy eating food, you have been to either the original location in New York's Madison Square Park or to one of the chain's many, many outposts around the country and globe by now. But for fans of Shake Shack's old-school-styled "roadside" burgers, crinkle-cut fries, and milkshakes, the first SF location couldn't come soon enough.
🤤 How much longer must I wait, @shakeshack??? pic.twitter.com/FST0qCiLKz
— Joseph Kristoffer ✌️ (@jisforJoe) January 30, 2020
This location, as SFist alerted you the other week, is opening in the former Real Food Co. space at Fillmore and Filbert in Cow Hollow, diagonally across the street from Atelier Crenn. And it precedes by a few months an upcoming downtown outpost for Shake Shack at the Westfield Centre food court, and an Oakland location coming to Uptown Station, a.k.a. the old Sears building.
As Eater reports, the menu at the new SF location has some SF-specific touches, including beers from Fort Point, 21st Amendment, and Drake’s, and dessert contributions from a couple of local bakers. The company's Culinary Director Mark Rosati explains that he'd always wanted to collaborate with b. patisserie's Belinda Leong, and so this menu includes a blended custard dessert — like a Dairy Queen Blizzard but here called a "concrete" — made with salted caramel sauce and bits of Leong's much celebrated kouign amanns. It's called the California Cold Rush.
There's another concrete dubbed the Great Escape made with Dough XX sugar cookie dough, from SF's own Omar Mamoon.
And like at the other Bay Area locations, there's a locally specific burger called the Golden State Double (pictured below) made with Richards Grassfed Beef, cheddar cheese, pickles, and smoked garlic aioli.
The first SF Shake Shack opens at 11 a.m. Monday, so expect a line of work-from-homers to form outside around 10:30 (or before!).