Beneath Shake Shack's lively West Village dining area is a culinary laboratory where new ideas are constantly being generated.
The company, known as Innovation Kitchen, is responsible for developing burgers, sandwiches and shakes that are served at home as well as in shacks as far away as Bangkok, Thailand.
“Every new menu item you see at Shake Shack restaurants around the world is developed, researched, pained and tasted here,” John Karangis, Shake Shack's executive chef and vice president of culinary development, told CNBC Make It. Ta.
Shake Shack has approximately 350 stores in the United States and an additional 134 stores around the world, and is valued at more than $4 billion. With dozens of new locations scheduled to open later this year, the team at Innovation Kitchen is constantly developing new services.
We want to be very considerate of the place and the neighborhood. [a new Shake Shack is] It will be.
John Karangis
Shake Shack Executive Chef
“When we open a new Shake Shack, we want to be very mindful of the location and the area,” Karangis says. “Our team goes out months and even years in advance to do extensive research to understand what is really important to a place, its people, and its culture.”
For example, when Shake Shack opened its first location in Japan, the Innovation Kitchen team flew 6,700 miles to Tokyo to explore the city's unique flavors. The result was the Shack Ura Shake, which mixes the chain's famous vanilla custard with cherry jam.
Menu items must be approved by Shake Shack's 13-person tasting panel before they can be delivered to customers. The panel evaluates everything from the taste of the food to the specific order in which ingredients are stacked on a burger bun.
“We're thinking about what additional supporting ingredients we can add,” says Karangis. “Should the onions and pickles be on the top or on the bottom? Everything really matters.”
Taste isn't the only thing you need to consider. How delicious an item is is just one of the factors the Innovation Kitchen team considers when developing new recipes.
“You need to be able to market in a way that meets your financial goals,” Karangis says. “We have to make sure the team within the shack can do it consistently at a very high level. If one of them fails, we're not set up to succeed.”
In the case of Shack Ura Shake, the frozen treat became so popular that it made a seasonal appearance in Japan every spring and eventually made its way stateside.
Shake Shack's latest limited-time menu, a barbecue-inspired menu, was months in the making. Karangis and his team created “at least 25 different versions” of each new burger before settling on the final “build” for national launch.
Shake Shack's Innovation Kitchen team has developed more than 25 versions of
shake shack
While the Innovation Kitchen typically focuses on these limited releases, some items, like avocado and crispy onions, have grown into full-time mainstays on Shake Shack's core menu.
When Karangis isn't in the kitchen, he likes to walk by Shake Shack and see if customers are enjoying the products his team has created. Sometimes, he says, you ask someone, “How's that going?”
“At the end of the day, our job is to make someone’s day or meal a little bit more enjoyable,” he says. “I’m really happy that we were able to accomplish that.”
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