Since people are willing to pay cold hard cash to skip the line at Shake Shack, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that other burger establishments might try to duplicate some of the Shack's methods for success. What does come as a surprise is just how obvious MilkBurger in Harlem's thievery is.
Here's what happened: A Hamburger Today went up to the newly opened MilkBurger, where they noticed some striking similarities between the Shake Shack menu and the MilkBurger menu. As in, it's been copied pretty much word-for-word, although ShackSauce has been changed to MilkSauce (which just, ew). And if the uncredited photo on the restaurant's homepage looks suspiciously like a Shackburger, that's because it is, and it was used without permission from AHT editor Robyn Lee's Flickr stream. The owner of MilkBurger even told AHT, "Yeah, we're basically exactly the same as the Shake Shack, except we've got chicken, cheaper prices, and we deliver. Same quality and everything."
We're guessing a cease and desist letter from Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group is on the way, if it hasn't arrived already. And who could blame them? This is way worse than the time that a Texas pizza joint ripped off the Brooklyn Brewery.
