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Shake Shack to offer limited-edition picnic-oriented merch to promote its vegetarian optionsShake Shack to offer limited-edition picnic-oriented merch to promote its vegetarian options

Guests can pick up baskets with veggie burgers, non-dairy frozen custard and outdoor dining accoutrements at 10 location nationwide

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

July 25, 2023

2 Min Read
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Shake Shack is selling picnic kits at select locations across the country this weekend to help promote its new vegetarian burger and non-dairy desserts.

The $60 kits will only be available on July 29 and 30 and will include two Veggie Shack hamburgers (a patty made with mushrooms, sweet potatoes, carrots, farro, and quinoa on a toasted potato roll with American cheese, pickles, onion rings, and Shack Sauce) and a pint of the chain’s non-dairy chocolate custard made with NotMilk (which has a base of sunflower oil and pea protein).

The baskets can be reserved at a Shake Shack microsite and picked up at the following 10 locations:

Atlanta, Piedmont Park

Chicago Athletic Association Hotel

Washington, D.C., at The Wharf

Dallas, Uptown

Denver, Edgewater

Los Angeles, Santa Monica

New York City, Madison Square Park

San Antonio, Breckenridge Park

San Francisco, Cow Hollow

St. Louis, Central West End

Those meatless and dairy-free menu items were introduced in early May. Shake Shack had a vegetarian burger before the launch of the Veggie Shack. The new item replaced the previous one.

The basket will also contain two orders of crinkle cut fries, choice of two lemonades, a Dock & Bay picnic blanket, a S’well ice cream chiller, an ice cream scooper, Supergoop! Play Sunscreen, a frisbee, playing cards, a Bluetooth speaker, bamboo dishware and utensils, and custom cloth napkins.         

Related:KFC launches a new merch shop

Shake Shack said the picnic set has a retail value of more than $250.

The chain’s chief marketing officer, Jay Livingston, said the picnic-oriented offer ties into the heritage of Shake Shack, which started in a park in New York City.

“Now that our delicious new veggie burger and creamy non-dairy frozen custard are core menu staples nationwide, we’re bringing Shack fans a next level experience that draws inspiration from our roots – Madison Square Park – with a picnic kit that comes with everything you need to ‘veg out’ at the park, in NYC, and across the country!” he said in a statement.

The chain also is offering free shakes nationwide with the order of a Veggie Shack via the chain’s app or its website, shakeshack.com, with the code VEGGIETIME, through July 30.

New York City-based Shake Shack had 449 restaurants systemwide as of March 29.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

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About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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