Shaka Shack is Surprisingly Good (And their Veggie Burger is Downright Great)
I don’t know if it’s because I moved here from New York, but I had to do a double take the first time I read about Shaka Shack– a new burger joint that just opened on Ocean Park Blvd. in Santa Monica. Change one letter and you’ve got, arguably, the most popular burger place in New York City. A chain that has not only expanded to Miami, Washington DC and Dubai, but was also big enough to get one star in the New York Times yesterday. What were these Shaka Shack people thinking!? Could this be west coast payback for the overt In N Out Burger rip off that opened in Manhattan two years ago? And how did they expect to get away with this? At least McDowell’s was owned by a guy with the last name McDowell.
The answer? Shaka Shack is nothing like the Shake Shack. It’s a tiki bar’esque, surfer themed hangout, with a beach bum owner who could argue that he had never heard of the New York chain and you just might believe them (even though his ex wife used to work for Wolfgang Puck and they appeared on the NBC show Chopping block together).
Posted at 11:17 am, February 22nd, 2012 under Burgers, Santa Monica, Shaka Shack.
