Shake Shack The School Yard — Restaurant in Sandy

Utah and the Salt Lake City areas needs another burger fries and shake joint like it needs a hole in the head. And wow 722 reviews in only a few months. For this place on the positive side first let me say it's great that Sandy preserved this lovely old building and the company has done a good job of putting a business in here which makes great use of the space. It's a nice space and they have games and tv and stuff. Now, I had heard of this place because before David Letterman (I think he owns a stake in them) went off the air he would buy the audience shakes and sometimes the guests burgers, fries and shakes. That was pretty entertaining and I thought yeah I'd like to try that. And now one opens right near me however for the first few weeks the lines were crazy out the door. So we waited until we could go in an off hour time and try something. While they have an online menu it has no prices. When we went in and looked I was a bit taken aback by the high prices. It was above the average around here for good local burger joints. So we skipped the food and tried what they are named for, a chocolate shake. It was almost $6 for a small one. Although I think there may only be one size. And they charge more for extras like malt. The look and the consistency was good and it had more of a cocoa-y taste than a milk chocolate taste. But really it didn't taste that great. For $6 and the hype I expected almost the greatest shake I've ever had. It was not! The thing is that withing a few miles square area from this location there are four local Greek burger joints all of which are less expensive and offer great food including much better shakes! There's Five Guys and InNOut Burger if that's your thing and plenty of others. Honestly with all the other burger and shake joints around, both local and franchise, who needs Shake Shack?! With all due respect to David Letterman, I hope they don't put any more in Utah and that this one goes out of business and they put something else more useful...

This will be a mixed review.

Cliffs notes: Tasty (but small) burgers, decent fries, terrible shakes, everything is expensive for what you get.

Full version: My wife and I tried Shake Shack for the first time today, and bottom line, we were underwhelmed. Service was slow; took 15 minutes from ordering to receive our food. We each tried the Smokeshack burger, which has cheese, bacon, and chopped cherry peppers. It was good... but small. Everyone saying it's no better than a burger from McDonald's or In N' Out aren't far off if referring solely to size, but not taste. The patties are fresh and much thicker than the frozen, processed patties fast-food joints use. Their signature sauce is tasty, and the peppers added a lot of flavor to the package. Delicious, but small, and not worth $6.75 to us because of how small it was. There are competitors that sell larger burgers of the same or better quality, with equally good flavor, for similar prices. Next, the fries. They were undercooked for my liking; not very crispy. Otherwise decent. Now for the final straw... the "Shake" in Shake Shack likely refers to milkshakes. Being that the massive chain is named for shakes, you'd think they would know how to make decent shakes. What a misnomer. Their so-called Concrete Shakes are appropriately named not for their thickness, but for their horrible taste and grittiness. My chocolate shake was the absolute worst milk shake I've ever had. Even if it was on par with most other low-quality fast food restaurants (which is what their shakes compete with, since they're fake), it wouldn't have been worth the ridiculous price of $5 for a 16-oz shake. Because it was runny, gritty, and the flavor was terrible, the shakes aren't worth paying a dime for. For $5, I expect real ice cream. Do yourself a favor, go literally anywhere else for a milkshake. There's a great local chain that does Frozen Custard right that has a location between South Jordan and Daybreak, for about...

I never had a problem with this place beforehand, but since they started keeping the dining area closed and only doing app and internet orders I have had two times coming to get food and ending up with complicated ordering, long waits, and incorrect orders. I'll explain here but in short the quality of the food is not longer worth the hassle.

For example: the last time I went to this location I remembered that their dining area was closed only after entering. I was frustrated but I had the app on my phone so my husband and I decided we'd give it a try.

The first complaint about the app: we couldn't order shakes. They had posters everywhere about their monthly shakes, but the desert section on the app was completely missing. Additionally, the only drink they were offering was root beer. I work in tech--it wasn't that I was just looking in the wrong place; the options simply weren't available. I watched the staff and no one made any shakes. It's called Shake Shack, for Pete's sake; I don't know why they would bother advertising what they weren't making.

2nd app problem: it wouldn't submit my order. I tried to pay three times with different payment types but each time the "Submit" button wouldn't work. Concerned I might be racking up charges, I decided it just wasn't worth it and we went to McDonald's. Probably for the best, since I remember that the last time I did manage to put in an order here it took an hour to complete and I had to sit outside the whole time or get yelled at.

So, for anyone thinking they want a nice burger and shake at Shake Shack: think again. You won't be able to order half of their menu and you may not even be able to order at all. If you do, expect to be waiting a while for it and you won't be able to wait inside at all.

Generally I like to leave good reviews, but this experience was so abnormal and happened more than once so I feel at this point it's important to warn people: "Go...