Shake Shack Willow Place — Restaurant in Virginia

Shake Shack Willow Place review summary – a hospitality cult hype not yet ready for Richmond – miss this for a few months – I hope this review helps guests and leadership.

Five days after opening, the third visit, I arrived around 9 PM Friday with only about 10 guests waiting in the inside line. 3 of the 4 self-serve kiosks again had “out of order - see a hospitality champ" signs, while 1 self-serve kiosk had no sign.

Several guests, including me, stepped out of 1 of 2 open staffed lines to place their order at the seemingly open kiosk to find they could select items but could not finish the order. The single inside open line moved like a snail. I overheard nearly every order attempted in front of me that we are out of stock, maybe even the ShakeShack Burger, how could that be?

Ordered grilled cheese and they said we don't offer grilled cheese. After I pointed to it on the menu, and they did some checking they could place the order.

Nice people doing the best they could absent better support. Multiple drinks without ice sitting on the prep stand appeared to have been prepared earlier and not served. The ample opening day staff had vanished from the dining room, and it was strewn with trash.

About 10 minutes later I received my to-go order with an apology for the wait. When leaving around 930 PM, they had closed the drive-through line earlier than the 10 PM shown. If guests are in line before the published closing, they deserve to be served. Every evening I've been by since opening they have closed early. Fix your opening hours so guests know what you are going to deliver.

Standing out is the Chicken Shack, which is the best sandwich I've had there, maybe even uniquely better than the ShackBurger. Nice and crispy with a good flavor, including the great pickles. The excellent chocolate shake was fresh, cold, and just the right mouthfeel and richness of the chocolate. The grilled cheese was small, but delicious and crispy on the outside with tasty, melted cheese inside. I'd order all 3 again and they represent a good value.

Overall, after 3 visits, the food is good but for 5 days decreasing is the inadequate technology, logistics, preparation, and lack of management presence that are diminishing a sense of community. Guests don't like it and the staff is emotionally drained. Leadership knew they would be steadily busy from open to close for weeks or months until traffic normalizes.

Not expected from a fine casual dining leader are out-of-stock items and not posting out items before guests wait long periods to find out (place a temporary dynamic screen at entry points until you can figure out ordering and rent nearby temporary cold or dry storage), lack of open kiosks, closing early (post dynamic hours what you mean closing time will be, online, on the door, and a screen at entry), trashed dining room, and inadequate visible management in the front (temporarily hotel experienced help from other locations).

Offer transparency and communicate early expectations for guests’ experience. I was there for about 30 minutes from entry to go and only saw management in the front for about 3 minutes. Offer a projected date for online and app ordering availability. From what I understand, this is not the reputation intended or the first opening of a simple easily repeatable business. I'd pay more for a better hospitality experience, but Shack please consider showing up with your scaled chain resources flexed to serve real hospitality in RVA well, so we are restored, feel good, and are happy about dining at the Shack, and more importantly can’t wait to return often. Danny, we feel left out so...

This was my 1st visit to ANY of these Restaurants. I'm so so soooo very disappointed, I had to write my review right here & right now. 1st: After waiting for what seemed like an eternity & with everyone looking at me from the kitchen and doing absolutely nothing to even acknowledged I was standing there, the Cashier (who later I found out is also the Manager) finally came over and told me right off the bat to go use the Kiosk to order. (BTW, he did the same with every single customer that followed after me.) I told him that if it was ok I rather order at the Register and with a much noticeable bothersome attitude he reluctantly took my order 2nd. I specifically asked for an unsweetened Iced Tea with my BLT, but I knew he wasn't even listening. (Which proved to be so when I was served some other type of cold and VERY sweet drink.) I wasn't being difficult. My preference responded to the fact that I'm diabetic. It's a need. Not a luxury. After paying and not seeing any Splenda (or similar) I go back to the counter & to this so-called- Manager to inquire about a sugar substitute & he just said "I don't think there's any Splenda here" and kept walking away. I approached another employee and asked again. She came back with the "precious Splenda". So....they had it, but he simply didn't want to give it to me and/or plain doesn't have any Customer Service skills... which by that time I could confirm it was both! 3rd. I'm sitting down now ready to eat as my order was brought to my table. BLT is good, but more like a child's portion. But so far I'm determined to make the best out of my Lunch time regardless! Until I take a sip of my drink... only to confirm what I suspected from the get go! Wrong drink!!! Sweet as hell! (If there's such a thing!) 4th. Now I get up and go to the counter AGAIN and when MR MANAGER approaches me I ask him first if he is the Mnger. He confirms!! 5th. I tell him I had asked for Unsweetened Tea and he gave me something else. No apologies. No eye contact. No smiles. No sign of any human gesture at all!!! Just that same old bothered-like attitude. 6th. He serves the correct drink and at that point I decided I should make good use of this opportunity to tell him that the way I was treated by him since I walked in had made me highly disappointed. Explained it was my 1st time here but also my last. Guess what! Now he smiles!!! Only to turn around & repeat the same with the guy that just walked in!!! One wonders....why do these type of people do business for? Do they need us as customers? Or did they open the place just for fun and they don't need it to succeed??? Some Lunch time for me today! If you are ever on the Willow Lawn area STAY THE HECK AWAY FROM THIS HORRIBLE, RUDE, BITTER PLACE. THEY DON'T WANT NOR NEED YOUR BUSINESS. Just go anywhere else or go fix yourself something at home. At least you'll enjoy it and you won't be paying $13 for such a horrible experience. 7th. Oh! yes!!! One thing he did not miss out on was asking me if i wanted to leave a tip. Hahahaha...Like.....REALLY, DUDE???? Where are you from? Mars???? Not EVER spending even a dime at this place again! BEWARE!!!! Thank you,...

I guess I shouldn’t have had high expectations based on reviews and the opening weekend nightmare. All but one of the kiosks are out of order. We ordered ranch spicy fries and weren’t given ranch. Went to get some then told they were out of ranch at 11 am. They should have said that so we didn’t order it. They don’t label the GF bun in any way so had to get up to ask about that too. They left out our order of shack sauce but I didn’t feel like getting up yet again.

The burger itself was fine. GF bun was decent. Definitely more bun than burger, but whatever. The mango lemonade was good but filled the about 3/4 full with barely any ice. Fries are Ore Ida style and overpriced. The spicy seasoning was just spicy, no flavor, but at least added something to the flavorless fry.

There was one young lady assembling what seemed to be all the orders while other staff members (mostly guys, go figure) seemed to be standing around doing nothing. Hopefully she gets a raise.

I just don’t think they’re equipped to handle the demand and maybe they need to close for a bit to figure it out, not sure how you run out of things like ranch. When I worked in food service they’d send the manager to Walmart to get stuff like that in an emergency. You can’t order o line and there was no human taking orders so how they’ll survive with one working kiosk is going to be a challenge. I’ll come back eventually, but don’t see what the hype is. We have so many DC transplants in RVA now I guess they’re all obsessed with it, but Five Guys has fries that are actually good and there are tons of local burger joints with great service. $5 for a 3/4 full (see pic) lemonade is a bit of a scam when you can get better...