My First Shake Shack Experience

It seems lately there's more hype around here every time a new burger place opens than when any other restaurant arrives. Naturally, I tend to pay attention because, well, I like burgers. And you may remember that I waited in a line for 90 minutes in 2010 to try to get a free burger at the newly-opened 500° -- though I only got a buy one, get one free deal instead. And I compared 500° to Five Guys.


Since I wrote that post Five Guys opened a second downtown location, as well as one at Grant Ave. near Roosevelt Blvd, which is a lot closer to my house. So when I get a chance I stop in either one of these locations.


Based on the comments I've seen online from New Yorkers, where the Shake Shack chain originated, I was very excited to hear that Shake Shack was opening here, at 20th and Sansom Sts. This is right next to one of the comic book stores I regularly frequented, which would be great if I hadn't cut back on comics after DC Comics decided to have Superman wear his baby blanket as a cape.


So the other day, after it had been open long enough (almost 2 weeks) that the lines during off-peak hours (such as between lunch and dinner) pretty much dwindled, I visited the Shake Shack. At 3:20 pm, the wait in line was maybe five minutes. And also because of the time, I was able to sit at a table with no problem.


After looking over the various menu items, I decided on a single ShackBurger, which is a basic single-patty burger with lettuce, tomato and their own special sauce.  I also got an order of fries, a regular-size soda and a dessert item. They have what they call Concretes -- described on the menu as "dense frozen custard blended at high speed with mix-ins." They have some that are Philly-centric, or you can just pick your own mix-in items. I ordered the "Center City Pretzel," which includes vanilla custard, "Philly-style soft pretzel," caramel sauce, marshmallow sauce and banana. I ordered the regular size instead of the half-size.

It took about ten minutes for my order to be ready. So how was everything?

Ballpark Rankings Update - O.co Coliseum

While I was in the San Francisco area I was able to get to an Oakland Athletics game. They play in what is now called the O.co Coliseum. O.co is the new name for Overstock.com. It's a terrible name but the sponsorship makes sense, since the whole Moneyball theory the A's operate on is based on trying to get quality players at a cheap price. Anyway, O.co is an old place -- older than the Vet. It opened in 1966 for the NFL Raiders and the A's moved in from Kansas City in 1968. So old that the men's room had troughs instead of urinals. I've taken a vow to never use a trough.

Being one of those multi-purpose places, the sightlines aren't so great in some areas. And even where I sat (seven rows behind the visitors' dugout; thanks for not buying up the good seats, A's fans), it seemed far away because there's a lot of room between the stands and the foul lines. That helps pitchers a lot, because foul pops that go into the seats in many places are easily caught here.

I stood up between innings of the game (in which the former Philadelphia A's beat Detroit, the day after the Tigers clinched the AL Central title) and circled around to take this video. YouTube is having issues again, or something, because the sound