Shake Shack Stonestown Galleria — Restaurant in San Francisco

Update March 2024: some of the service mess has been adjusted but it’s still a chaotic mess ordering and getting food. Burgers aren’t bad for a chain, though they are expensive and tiny. Buns are fabulous. French fries, if you partake, merit compliments. If you’re looking to drop $20-25 on a tasty burger meal, this place is in competition. But the seating is all the ambience and noise of a high school cafeteria and that minuscule burger disappears quickly.

First review:

Went in to give this location a shot. They opened half a month ago.

Entry layout is chaos and ridiculous, roped off walkway with nobody in it leading to a single triangular area filled with people ordering, people waiting for pickup, people waiting for dine in, people just hanging out. God knows where you’re supposed to be. There is also a minuscule triangular vestibule containing 3 computer terminals, two of them not in service. Is this where we are supposed to order, or is it at the cash register? Take a guess!!!

Finally figure out the cash register takes order. Then figure out which clump of people are waiting to order and get behind them. Super nice cashier (Eritrean woman?), takes order and gives me a table card which has a number. Silly me figures this means someone will bring it out when it’s hot and ready.

Settle in, wash the table and patiently wait for my small order. Nothing happening but they seem a little busy and obviously they recently opened. After about 15-20 minutes decided to see if they were still open. Up to counter, yep they’re open, wait a few minutes to catch the eye of cashier and check on what’s going on, other people got their food and I’ve got an appointment to keep. She goes away and checks for a few minutes, finally finds my order and it’s lukewarm. Offers to redo it but I don’t have another 10 minutes to spare, ask for a refund. Another nice woman comes over and spends another few minutes trying to figure out how to refund it, finally with a smile I get my money back and I head out half an hour lost and super hungry to an actual quick restaurant close by.

They just opened and the staff I dealt with were super patient and nice, so I give a lot of leeway here on what would otherwise be a 1-star rating. I’ll likely avoid this location for a few months until they get their system in much better condition for taking money and serving food. It’s not an outstanding burger, fairly overpriced and Shake Shack tends to have similar chaotic processes at all their restaurants so this isn’t a huge anomaly, just a reflection of bad planning by whoever their architect and process designer is. Their employees were overly awesome, just dealing with a horrifically designed system so I don’t bag on the working people for that.

For anyone looking for a really good burger, organic Niman Ranch and bigger, almost the same price with fries- try ‘Hall of Flame’ a little south in Park Merced. Hopefully SS will figure out their situation and clean it up a LOT, look forward to giving them another shot in...

New Post:

After my previous one start post, Shack Shack sent me a $25 credit to come back. I decided to go yesterday to give it another honest try, and what a disaster.

First, it was exceedingly painful to use their credit. Because I did not wish to install the app or use the website to use the credit, it took over 20 minutes to get the order in. The email said it was required to order via the web or app (meaning I would need to create a shake shack account), but an employee convinced me she could handle it directly. We then spent the next 10 minutes getting the order in (I don't know why it took so long) and of course she was unable to complete it. After we set up the order, she informed me that she couldn't help, and I would have to order off the web.

Now its been 10 minutes and my children are getting hungry. The food smells good.

I try to use the credit on the web app, and after inputing the order it tells me that I need an account to use the one time code. There is no technical reason for this, its simply a way to harvest peoples contact information - email and mobile numbers.

Next I create and account, input my order and then try to use the code, and get error - something is wrong, no explanation. It continues to do this.

My children are now fading. They started to eat catsup (no joke) - see attached photos.

Reluctantly, I install the app, re-input my order for the 3rd time, and the order goes through. We have a 15 minute wait now.

In order to draw a comparison to the last visit, I ordered the same burger - a single - golden state double. While the burger seemed a bit fresher this time, it was still incredibly gamey tasting. Grass fed beef often suffers from this as a side effect, thus normal people put some spice, dry rub, salt or pepper on it to counteract that taste. In addition, it had no char on it that is typically associated with smash burgers. With a small amount of imagination, the flavor of the burgers can be greatly enhanced.

At the moment, I remain unimpressed. SS costs 3-4x more than In-and-Out, and cannot seem to produce a superior taste. While they have excellent location placements, people try it out of curiosity, but often do not come back or have the loyalty they have to In-and-Out due to economics is my guess.

original post

This is my second trip to shake shack. Unfortunately once again I was disappointed this time I got a double cheeseburger with cheddar and pickles the meat was gamey and bland. It felt like I was eating old meat and they apparently don't use any seasoning. I am sad to say I was deeply disappointed and I'm not drawn to...

Have been a Shake Shack fan and decided to have this for dinner since we were at the mall and it’s now finally open. the ordering kiosks are in a tight weird corner, not spaced out too well. Huge waiting area. Appreciated the chilled water fountain. Needs a better system for ensuring ppl grab correct orders (verify receipts?, pagers?, numbers?)

What we didn’t appreciate was someone taking our order. We got a text saying our order was ready, go up immediately to check and claim it, but we wait around and don’t see it, giving it some time coz maybe the text was sent prematurely. We asked the team member how much longer it could be bc we got the text already, he says “give me 3 mins”. After waiting about 10-15 mins more, seeing as its visibly busy and trying to be understanding w/o bugging them, I look over at the table next to us bc I had an odd feeling about this one man who got his food before we did and he arrived much later than us. He was holding alot of food but I assumed his party was to follow. He coincidentally had a chicken sandwich and a burger and 2 fries just as we did. More waiting for our order and at this point he’s eaten the entire chicken sandwich and some of the fries. We address the possible mishap w a team member bc we realize he just had to have taken our order. As we’re doing so, the man brings the food back to a team member to get a refund bc he just ate what he didn’t even order. He ordered a TO-GO order(in bags) but he chowed down already on our DINE-in order (comes in trays) . He manages to get a refund and leave w his to-go bag anyhow.

We get our food re-made and it’s not done peak Shake Shack like I’m used to, but I’ll give ‘em some slack coz they’re still new. Still yummy! And I appreciate the attentiveness of the manager tonight who addressed the food-stealing-man and was on-top of it to make sure we...