Shake Shack is an American fast casual restaurant chain based in New York City. It started out as a food cart inside Madison Square Park in 2004, and its popularity steadily grew. It eventually moved to a stand within the park, expanding its menu from New York-style hotdogs to one with hamburgers, hotdogs, fries and its namesake milkshakes. The company claims to use all-natural 100% Angus beef only and says that its meat has no hormones nor antibiotics.
Since its founding it has been one of the fastest-growing food chains eventually becoming a public company filing for an initial public offering of stock in late 2014. The offering priced on January 29, 2015; the initial price of its shares was at $21 immediately rising by 123% to $47 on their first day of trading.
In 2000, New York City began the rebuilding of Madison Square Park, which had fallen into a state of disrepair and misuse. As part of the redevelopment, restaurateur Danny Meyer helped spearhead the creation of the Madison Square Park Conservancy to help redevelop it. One of the first things the Conservancy did in its goal to improve the park was to host an art exhibit called "I <3 Taxi" inside of the park to raise awareness of the renewal effort. Meyer's Director of operations, Randy Garutti, established a hot dog cart which was run out of the kitchen of Eleven Madison, one of Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) operations. Over time the cart became extremely successful, and remained in operation for nearly three years.
In 2004, the city began taking bids to operate a new kiosk-style restaurant within the park; Meyer outlined his idea for the space, and opened the first Shake Shack in July 2004. From its beginning the restaurant was not designed to be a chain, intended to be a single shop location designed specifically for New York City. However, as the original location's sales continued to grow, the group realized that there was a market for expansion.
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