Shake Shack- Monmouth Mall, Eatontown

Didn’t notice a post about this so I decided to start one. This appears to be very big news for the Eatontown/Ocean area and a major shot in the arm for the mall’s redevelopment.

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I had an afternoon appointment in Tom’s River and noticed the Shake Shack sign on the new parkway rest area around exit 100 so I decided to give it a try. I’m not sure how long this location has been open but the best way I can describe it is a total sh*t show.

I have never been to one before so I cannot fairly compare this to other locations if perhaps their organization is different for a food court style setting vs a stand alone location but they need to get organized. The entire experience took 30 mins from standing in line to order to receiving my order so a total “fast food” lunch of 45 minutes. They have sufficient staff but only 1 of 5 registers open and a mob of people waiting for their food.

The food/burger itself was meh…I ordered the smoke stack single which is supposed to come with bacon, mine didn’t so I had to go back to request it. The burger itself is tiny and thin, I would say half the thickness of a quarter pounder at Mc Donald’s, if that’s a 4oz burger this is 2-3 oz!!! (Just a guess) My fries were unsalted I don’t know if you have to request salt or if they forgot. I would be hard pressed suggesting this place over a Mc Donald’s honestly and I never thought I would say 5 Guys blows someone away, but it does this.

I did not have a shake.

I will take my son to the Monmouth Mall location when it opens to compare the two but thus far color me under impressed.

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wow- that’s a total opposite to my limited experiences there. I would wonder f being newly opened, in a rest stop, and during summer madness is cause of the issue here.

While I’ve always experienced decent lines, they’ve always gone above to try to at least appear to be working hard to get through the rush and food has always been on point (but never cheap).

Based on your experience I’ll prob hold off on the one in Eatontown until at least end of summer and maybe a cpl months after opening esp considering Pour House is closer. I would suggest maybe trying again after summer and the “hype” has died down, but I still do wonder if a highway rest stop location is going to be an issue for them (similar to hotels in NYC no longer being able to put out good restaurants for most part).

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Guess the employees weren’t trained to request their pagers back either, look what I just found in my suit jacket. It never buzzed they just shouted out names.

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what a sh&t shack!!!

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What was the tariff for your awful meal?

$13.53…including a drink

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OOOOOOOOF. This does NOT sound like a Danny Meyer venture one bit! I’ve had nothing but good experiences at various Shake Shacks in and out of NYC. Would love to know when they opened (not that that’s an excuse).

ETA that I had to know. According to the NJ.com article I found, they opened 3.5 weeks ago.

that’s long enough to not be THAT terrible by now.

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Honestly I can’t stress enough how unorganized this was for “fast-food”. There was a manager standing up front by the registers, I kept waiting for him to open one up, they have an expeditor standing in front of the line that shouts the wait time to the line cooks (at least 5 people on the line) who responded to each shout with some gibberish I couldn’t make out. The line though, for as long as it took to order it took longer to receive the food. As you can see it’s 20 people deep waiting to pick up their order. Being at a NJ parkway rest area I can easily see fist fights breaking out, it was literally that bad.

A bit short sited in the planning of this rest area is that only Shake Shake and Antie Ann’s pretzels are the only food vendors, so really just Shake Shake for any kind of meal.

No Sabarro (or any pizza) no Nathan’s, no KFC nothing. I think if there was a few more options the line and organization might be more manageable but 80% of people looking for food is going here.

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Price creep. It’s everywhere! Paying $5.75 for a BK Whopper, and $8.99 for a Combo is just craziness. I can go to any one of four bars inside a mile of my home and get a bar burger, fries and a domestic beer for $6. A far fresher, and far better meal than fast food.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case… They might need to do what Salt Hotels has done in AP and have a training school.

It wouldn’t to shock me, it’s a problem At the shop rite in Shrewsbury too. Think they had real trouble staffing initially and it’s showing nowadays.

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I have only had SS three times, including once at the original Madison Square park location. I’m a fan but would never fight crowds for it and was skeptical about one opening in a rest area. I understand it’s the most popular spot there, which isn’t at all surprising.

So today I returned to the Madison Square Park location, and they had no ketchup. They ran out of it yesterday I heard an employee explain. How do you run out of ketchup at your flagship location in the summer, on the weekend, in the heart of NYC? More specifically, how do you not quickly find a way to resolve the situation?

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You run out of ketchup in your flagship location by going public. It’s the shareholder’s fault.

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Where are these magical places? Nothing around here (Matawan et al) has anything that cheap so far as I know.

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@RedJim

If you’re paying 5.75 for a Whopper you’re doing it wrong. There are always coupons (get the burger king app) that allows you to get it much cheaper, and almost always some kind of buy 1 get 1 type deal without coupons. Right now you can get a Whopper combo for 5 bucks or a double whopper combo for 6. If you don’t want a combo 2 whoppers are 6 bucks, you can mix and match with a chicken sandwich.

For the 8.99 price you mentioned you can actually get 2 whopper combos. A double whopper by itself is 3 bucks.

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Monmouth Mall’s Shake Shack To Open August 17

Well well well as a continuation to my post about the impossible burger I also took a trip to the Monmouth Mall Shake Shack today at the request of my daughter. I couldn’t resist ordering another smokestack and this time I also got a shake. (Coffee)

Similar to the mall they had a ton of people working and while fairly busy for a Tues afternoon I would hate to know their staffing costs.

It’s apparent that not only was the service horrible at the rest area but they gave me a completely wrong burger. This burger with sauce, bacon and chopped peppers was actually pretty good. Much different then that first (regular?) burger I received last time.
(See pic)

The patty is still very thin for my liking but this redeemed them to ok vs horrible like my first visit. Shake was ok/good too.

They even collected the buzzer this time so I couldn’t add to my collection!!

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