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Comment by admn2 | Hacker News Reader

Enjoyed the article. This reminds me a lot of what Groupon used to do to restaurants in the early days. They would just get slammed by hundreds of crabby people looking to one and done them for a half priced meal. Obviously as Groupon became more ubiquitous this lessened, but I do vividly remember going to a hot dog and burger place and finding the two owner-operators absolutely miserable as a line of 20 people formed out their door.

Back to the article: seems this is why Shake Shack succeeded and prospered with one store being inundated by customers. I'm sure this place has a lot of smart money wanting to use their name and recipe. Maybe not such a bad outcome?

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As another child comment mentions, Shake Shack was designed in a lab to be a franchise monster. The founder of Shake Shack is Danny Meyer, who is quite possibly America's most celebrated restaurateur and the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group. By the time Shake Shack opened, Meyer had been running restaurants for over 30 years.

The hot dog cart in Madison Park that originated Shake Shack was stocked by the kitchen of Eleven Madison Park (then a Meyer owned restaurant) which sits next to the park, has three Michelin stars and in 2017 was #1 on the World's 50 Best Restaurant's list.

Shake Shack began as a hot dog stand, but a hot dog stand created for a park being developed by a successful NYC restaurateur who owned a hospitality management company. If you're the sole developer of a new downtown park, and you own the only hotdog stand in that park, and you have lots of resources, it's going to be a success. When later there's the opportunity to develop the park further, you may pony up the cash to build a building to sell even more food. And later, when you see how successful it is, and you see the opportunity to branch out, you can do that, too.

Some restaurants become popular because people with money are in the right place at the right time, and not because it was an old-school authentic eatery discovered by a food writer and put on a top-foods-list.

Supply side economics dominates. There is no such thing as authentic demand.

Isn't the lesson here rather that monopolies, good management, and quality products are good for business?

Shake Shack is more about hyping just-ok products. There are better (and cheaper) burgers to be had without the megadosing of salt to compensate for a mediocre blend. They keep the seats filled because they worked the hype machine and the tourists flock there.

> I'm sure this place has a lot of smart money wanting to use their name and recipe. Maybe not such a bad outcome?

You have to understand and emphasize with someone's goals for starting and running a business. It's not always money and notoriety. Sometimes it's just that someone wants to do a certain thing with their waking hours.

Totally agree. More just meant at this point he doesn't have that option as easily, so maybe he sells out and then starts something small again. I know it's probably not too feasible given the emotional attachment he has to the business, just can't imagine some operator coming in there without ruining the charm of the place, which would be the main reason to keep things the same.

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