Shake Shack 479 Route 17 South - Paramus — Restaurant in Paramus

This place is awful. I walked in and the entire staff of immature and lazy people were just standing around nowhere near the register, laughing. I waited politely and tried to make eye contact with someone so they would realize I needed to place an order. Finally a girl walked forward but kept her head facing the rest of the group behind her, continuing to laugh the entire time. I told her I wanted three milk shakes and she laughed through the entire transaction as she had difficulty using the computer and then required the help of two additional employees to successfully complete the transaction. They were unprofessional at best, incredibly rude at worst. I waited for them to make my shakes as I heard her call out to the people who make the shakes, “I’m gonna need a [something] special!” Which sounded suspicious to me given that they had been laughing (possibly at me) the entire time. I noticed the other orders waiting to be picked up looked so sloppy and dirty - like you’d expect items to look that were ready to be thrown away - the sides of the cups were smudged with food and dirty, the cups weren’t sitting all the way in the cup holders, but instead lopsided, and the lids weren’t even completely pressed on. I finally got my three shakes and took them to the car to give my children and notice through the clear lid that one of them has a HAIR IN IT. I immediately bring it back in and say to the same girl, “there’s a hair in this shake.” Then I hear another of the girls yell, “YOU PUT IT ON TOP!?” So they all are laughing hysterically as I’m standing there in shock that these lowlifes are all employed here. The manager comes over and asks what happened. I explained and the first girl stood there laughing the whole time. I said, “why can’t she even stand here and talk to you (the manager) without laughing? Is everyone here high?” The manager offered to have new ones made and I said I didn’t want to eat anything that came from this place. It is so disgustingly dirty in there, and the people running it are even more disgusting and RUDE. I used to love shake shack but to have people purposely put hair in my kids’ shake and laugh about it the entire time, I’ll never eat there...

Later in 2021: The Shake Shack team reached out. But after two weeks has not followed up. Seems customer service is the same as the grill jockeys when it comes to burning the customers or the burgers. Ryan A reached out to see if i received a reply: No, I had not. I told him so. 10 days more and still have not. 2021: Curbside is a good idea and should work like clockwork at this point. The app regulates the lead time when placing an order. Not sure why when they open at 11am, a 30 minute lead time is required. I submitted the order at 1104am, and it assigned 1130 pick up. If I had been 5 minutes faster, I would have been told 1115. The restaurant lot was EMPTY when we got there (10 minutes after ordering), I clicked the 'I am here' on the app. To then have to wait 25 minutes is stupid and inconsiderate. My thoughts on the actual food have not changed. My burger was way overdone, they used to be a Pat LaFrieda sirloin and brisket patty - maybe it still is, but when you cook the burger as completely as mine was, it might be a hockey puck made of any grade of beef from Aldi (my wife says her burger was pink inside). I was excited about the packaging the fries came in - it was vented and kept them from getting soggy - did not keep them warm, but they were crisp. The shakes and the root beer float were top notch; the float developed a head during assembly, but the head had disappeared when it was delivered so the cup looked only 2/3 full. 2016: It sits back from the highway, so it is easy to drive past. I always shake my head at burger places that make a point of telling you how your burger will be medium - warm pink in the middle, and still send out totally brown burgers. Shake Shack is not any different - disappointing. Smoke Burger was tasty but over done, the basic burger was tasty...

I've never met a Shake Shack that I didn't like. Well maybe except for this one. We ordered at around 12:20 for a 12:45 pick-up. We arrived at 12:55 and it still wasn't ready. But that's not the reason for the two stars. It was the parking lot (which is cramped) and most importantly, the food. I always say you can't go wrong with Shake Shack but this location was just not good. Maybe we came at the wrong time and the lunch rush was too overwhelming?

We wanted to try the spicy chicken. I ordered it hot and my husband ordered it fire (there's hot, extra hot, and fire). We couldn't tell which one was which because there wasn't any sort of labeling, and they both looked the same. It's basically just a regular chick'n shack and the "spice level' is the amount of cayenne pepper they sprinkle on it. I ate half of the fire one before I realized it wasn't mine but there wasn't a huge difference between that and the hot one. The chicken was also overfried, so it was dry. There’s also no option to customize it so you can’t add or remove anything even if you wanted to. Cheese would have helped the sandwich go down a bit easier.

We also decided to try the chicken bites since those were limited time too, but these were just disgusting. Also overfried, it was super oily to the point that the breading was falling off of the rubbery chicken. That didn't exactly make it easy to dip it in the cheese sauce it came with. The fries were probably the best part of the meal. They were the "spicy fries", so it was the same uninnovative method they used for the hot chicken but at least these weren't overdone or too oily.

Don't think I'd return to this location. If I need Shake Shack, I'll just venture out to the city or wait for the Hoboken...