Center Stage: Shake Shack (Theatre District)

We here at Newbie Foodies are huge fans of Shake Shack and go to the original location at Madison Square Park on a fairly regular basis (especially The Mr). We have now visited the relatively newer Theatre District location several times now and feel like we can definitely weigh in. Every time we've come it has been later in the evening after a show and there has never been much of a line. We've also only had to wait a minute or two for a table, so not too shabby on those fronts.

What've we eaten? Well of course we've had the burgers and cheese fries and found them to absolutely measure. In fact, since all of our visits have been this winter, the food has been better considering we didn't have to eat them in the freezing cold or wait until we got home until stuffing them in our mouths.

The Theatre District location has three specialty concretes served only at this location. I have tried two of them and can honestly say they are phenomenal and worth the trip to this specific location to get. Let's start with "Jelly's Last Stand" which I tried on a cold night back in December. This one features vanilla custard, strawberry preserves, cinnamon sugar and most importantly donuts from The Doughnut Plant. Holy Sweet Donuts, Batman! Check out those huge chunks of sweet deliciousness. This is amazingness in a cup. I meant to save half to bring home to The Mr...but failed and ate the whole thing. Then I had all the guilt of eating a shake plus all the guilt of eating a donut. Whoops.

Jelly's Last Donut

Tonight I tried "Pretzel! The Concrete". This time I noticed that you can get a half-sized concrete. Perfect! I don't know if this is new or if it's only at this location, but I've always wished for a smaller size. This one features chocolate custard, peanut butter and marshmallow sauce, and chocolate covered pretzels. Oh Mylanta! I'm a huge fan of salty and sweet, so the addition of pretzels to this mixture sent it over-the-top. I also loved how the pretzels were in big chunks- there is something immensely satisfying about creamy, melty ice cream with big chunks of goodies in it.

Pretzel! The Concrete

Another random note about this location is that they have an AMAZING soundtrack. Music isn't something I tend to notice at restaurants (unless it's incongruous and/or distracting), but on two separate occasions the person I was with would be like "I LOVE this song" several times, until we realized that we just loved every darned song. 

The verdict is in and due to the subway convenience, indoor seating, amazing concretes, and soundtrack I have to admit I actually prefer this location to the original!