Shake Shack Leicester Square — Restaurant in London

So I ordered a smokeshack burger and a shack-cago hotdog.

Firstly presentation overall is mixed. I have to say, the burger looks awful. It's flat, the buns are obviously flat and I would bet no one would guess you'd just paid £9 for that. The dog looks a bit better.

Ok, so let's rate them. The burger was ok, above average. Presentation, awful, but taste, not bad. The meat was a bit too well done for my liking but the taste was good. It was fairly smokey, doing justice to its name and the bacon added some crunch and saltiness. Ok, so maybe a 6/10 overall.

The dog? I mean it looks promising... But the first thing I notice when I touch the bun is... Oh it's cold. Warm would be good, room temperature would be ok, but it was actually cold? Like it'd just come out of the fridge?

Taste wise - not good. I have to be honest, it was not good. Cold bun isn't a great start, but the condiments were terrible. Seriously. This has helped me to understand that tomatoes don't go in a hot dog. And the sauce is... Awful. The mustard is massively overpowering, making everything bitter, the salads are limp and not crisp. But that overpowered and overused mustard is just terrible and ruins everything. Once I get rid of it, it tastes better. And the sausage itself isn't bad. But, not sure if it's just this restaurant and the way they did it here, but it just ruins everything. It's awful. Worst hotdog I've ever had probably.

So I paid nearly £20 for the burger, awful dog and a beer. For a slightly ok burger and an awful hotdog. Please, do yourselves a favour, if you really must go to the Shack Shack in London's Leicester Square, do not order a dog, and be prepared to feel slightly ripped off.

Go to the...

28/10/22 A visit to the Brent Cross restaurant, ordered the Sticky Toffee shake, looked so different to the one we had at Leicester Square. Take a look at the photos. I asked for a takeaway but it was place on one of their metal trays with my Shakemeister double pattie burger, didn't like the exposed burger touching the edge of the unclean tray...so I queried the shake, why there wasn't much sponge, I was told it was inside the shake, so it was soggy. Another staff member came and offered to remake one. Looked a lot better, glad I asked for a spoon, could not suck any of the shake through the paper straw, still I enjoyed my sticky toffee "ice cream"!

I've visited Shake Shack before but this was busy. We wanted to try their new sticky toffee pudding shake, heard some really positive things. With a prime location, we knew it'd be busy but the queuing was horrendous. Took 20 mins to order the shake and another 20 mins to collect it. I think the staff must have given it to another order. There was no lids, staff were slow and lacked so much enthusiasm.

No attention to detail, no friendly, or attentive service. Lids weren't correct size to drinks, despite a few attempts, he left the drink with a faulty lid. Really??

I spotted a customer collecting his order at the counter, there was no lid on his ice cream so he asked for one. Apparently they ran out and the customer had to out it in his paper bag as it was, no cutlery or napkins offered either.

The shake itself was tasty, at £5.95, it should be. Good flavour, sticky toffee sponge on top with a nice thick consistency.

Thumbs up for the 40 mins shake but thumbs down for the awful service and lack of seating area on the...

All right, either the world has gone bonkers or this is the most over hyped burger restaurant I had ever visited (at least since five guys moved to the UK). We have seen several branches open recently in London and wanted to give this chain a go.

4 of us (hungry) guys popped on Friday lunch to grab some quick bite.

The queue was long and the place was packed. We could barely find a place to sit (thinking: if there is demand surely there is some justification, right?).

Ordered Burgers, Fries and Fizzies. Nothing too complex. Took almost 20 minutes to get food. Ordering system is nicely displayed just... slow. So clearly not a "fast food" contender.

Food: No offence but the only thing I liked about the burger was the bun (small but decent brioche type). The entire Burger was small and way too salty (something about the cheese?). Even your average whopper beats this burger hands down and your get a whole meal for the price of this burger.

Fries was your basic supermarket crinkle cut. Just OK reasonable portion size. One of us ordered the cheese fries. It was horrible salty tasting (yep too salty again) paste. Why would you pay extra for that?

And finally the drinks: Are you kidding? Between the ice used and the cup size, it finished before you can cope with the over salted food. Must be the smallest drink in any fast restaurant I ever visited.

Paying £33 for: 1 x Regular Burger 1 x Double Burger 1 x Regular fries 1 x Cheese fries 2 x regular (tiny!) drinks.

If you enjoy paying this sort of price, for slow service and really nothing out of the ordinary burger and fries, you need your...