Praise Be To God: The Shake Shack Cometh… Officially!


You know that you’re living in a food-worshiping town when the prospect of a burger and milkshake stand from New York could fuel rampant speculation, off-the-record phone calls, and anonymous tips. But such has been the case for over a year regarding the esteemed Manhattan-founded Shake Shack, with the first fattening tidbits coming in to Foobooz way back in December 2009.

This morning, mega-realtor Michael Salove (his firm Michael Salove Company is involved in the vast majority of Center City retail and restaurant transactions) confirmed that he just signed Shake Shack for a spot downtown. And as if that’s not enough to get us all jazzed up, his exact words were: “We have just signed our first Philly location.” Meaning that one day Philadelphia will, like New York, sport five Shacks? One can only hope.

Salove did not provide an exact address, though we’re hearing 20th Street near Sansom, somewhere in the immediate vicinity of that nasty adult book store whose time has come and gone (long ago). The people at Shake Shack HQ answered our inquiry with a non-answer of the sort that you tend to get from people at HQs. They did tell us about the five new Shake Shacks they intend to open in 2011 (two in DC, one in Battery Park, one in Brooklyn, and one in Connecticut), but Philly was not on the list.