--- description: Shake Shack, known for its burgers, wants to trademark "chicken shack" title: Shake Shack Could Be Adding This Surprising New Menu Item image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt068a3c974e1402a0/6988512a428a9e5b51ccd5b3/shake-shack1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Fast Food](/tag/fast-food/) ## Fast Food Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Shake Shack Could Be Adding This Surprising New Menu Item by [Claire Zillman / Fortune](/author/fortune/) ## Claire Zillman / Fortune Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 21, 2015 3:30 PM CUT  In this photo illustration a cheeseburger and french fries are served up at a Shake Shack restaurant on January 28, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. In this photo illustration a cheeseburger and french fries are served up at a Shake Shack restaurant on January 28, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois.Scott Olson—Getty Images by [Claire Zillman / Fortune](/author/fortune/) ## Claire Zillman / Fortune Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 21, 2015 3:30 PM CUT Shake Shack isn’t afraid to mess with a good thing. The burger chain [that reported stellar first-quarter earnings](https://fortune.com/2015/05/14/shake-shack-shares/ "undefined") last week has hinted that it’s considering going in a new direction: chicken. A subsidiary of Shake Shack called SSE IP [filed an application on April 20](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102695984 "undefined") to trademark the name “chicken shack.” [The filing indicates](http://www.businessinsider.com/shake-shack-considers-chick-fil-a-killer-2015-5 "undefined") that the restaurant could introduce a new chicken item or open a chicken-focused restaurant. Either way, the addition of chicken would be a divergence from Shake Shack’s beef-heavy menu. The only chicken item it offers now is its chicken dog, which is made with chicken, sausage, and sage. Shack Shake did not immediately return a request for comment. [It told CNBC,](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102695984 "undefined") which first reported the news, that it has no “new items to announce at this time,” and that it’s always experimenting with new items in its test kitchen. In chasing after chicken consumers, Shack Shake is targeting a hot menu segment. Sales of chicken entrees at fast food restaurants grew 3% to $5.4 billion in the year ending in March—quicker than burgers, whose sales grew 1% to $7.9 billion, according to data that research firm NPD Group gave to CNBC. That said, Shack Shack’s chicken will be pitted against some serious competition. [Atlanta-based Chick-Fil-A managed to surpass KFC last year](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-28/chick-fil-a-stole-kfcs-chicken-crown-with-a-fraction-of-the-stores "undefined") as the nation’s leading chicken fast food restaurant by sales with less than half the number of restaurants and by operating one fewer day a week. (Chick-Fil-A restaurants, a chain founded by the deeply religious Samuel Cathy, are closed on Sundays.) Interestingly enough, [Chick-Fil-A announced in March](http://fortune.com/2015/03/10/chick-fil-a-gay-new-york/ "undefined") that it was moving onto Shake Shack’s home turf: It will open a restaurant in New York City this summer. A serious rivalry could be heating up. [_This article originally appeared on Fortune.com_](http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/shake-shack-chicken/ "undefined") ### 17\. The Krusty Burger  Woo Hoo! Springfield, hometown to America’s favorite animated family, The Simpsons, is coming to life at Universal Orlando Resort. Anchored by the mega-attraction, The Simpsons Ride, this expansive, new area within Universal Studios allows guests to enter the world of The Simpsons like never before. For the first time ever – anywhere – fans can grab a Krusty-certified meat sandwich at Krusty Burger, snatch the catch of the day at the Frying Dutchman, get a slice at Luigi’s Pizza, go nuts for donuts at Lard Lad, enjoy a “Taco Fresho” with Bumblebee Man, imbibe at Moe’s Tavern and more. Guests can also experience a new attraction – called Kang & Kodos’ Twirl ‘n’ Hurl – that will take “foolish humans” on an intergalactic spin designed to send them into orbit; and encounter two new Simpsons characters who will make their debut with the new area – Krusty the Clown and Sideshow Bob. Octavian Cantilli—Universal Orlando The fictional Simpsons hangout was so popular, it became a real-life restaurant in 2013, when Universal Studios Orlando opened a _Simpsons_ theme park. Ironically, menu staples like the Clogger Burger and the Mother Nature Burger—dismissed as gross on the cartoon—fetch over $10 in real life. ### 16\. The Ghost Burger  Courtesy of Kuma In October of 2014, Chicago heavy-metal-themed bar Kuma’s Corner launched one of the most outrageous burgers to date: the Ghost Burger—it’s named after Swedish metal band Ghost B.C.—was topped with an unconsecrated Communion wafer. The dish sold well, but angered Catholics (and garnered national headlines), prompting the owners to donate $1,500 to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago. ### 15\. The Varsity Burger  The Varsity's staple. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Kayla Tausche) Courtesy of Kayla Tausche—AP The ordering lingo for this Atlanta staple, which debuted in 1928, is almost as delicious as the burger itself: you get it “all the way” in lieu of “with onions,” and “walk a steak” replaces “to-go.” These branding gimmicks were later replicated by burger chains like In-N-Out, whose secret menu (see: “animal style” and “protein style”) has helped lure millions of customers. ### 14\. The Umami Burger  The Umami Burger made with shiitake mushrooms, caramelized onions, roasted tomato, parmesan crisp, and umami ketchup, with an order of fries is arranged for a photograph at UMAMIcatessen in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 14, 2012\. One of nightclub owner Sam Nazarian's Umami restaurants will open this year in Manhattan, part of a national expansion of the L.A.-based chain. Photographer: Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images Patrick Fallon—Bloomberg/Getty Images Arguably the first “modernist cuisine” patty, the Umami Burger—unveiled by Adam Fleischman in 2009—is meant to taste like, well, umami (a savory taste embodied in MSG), incorporating such toppings as soy-roasted tomatoes, parmesan crisps and pickled ginger. The patty’s success has fueled the opening of 21 additional locations. ### 13\. The Ray’s Hell Burger  Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev (L) and U.S. President Barack Obama have burgers for lunch at Ray's Hell Burger restaurant in Arlington, Virginia June 24, 2010\. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS) FOR BEST QUALITY AVAILABLE: ALSO SEE GM1E66S1OO001 - RTR2FO3N Kevin Lamarque—Reuters President Obama treated then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to one of these patties in Arlington in 2010—Obama’s was reportedly ordered plain, while Medvedev added jalapeños, mushrooms and onions. And the meal may have fostered intimacy between the two leaders: less than two years later, Obama was caught on a hot mic asking Medvedev for space on missile defense policy, explaining, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” Medvedev was amenable. ### 12\. The Ramen Burger  Courtesy of Keizo Shimamoto This so-called hybrid burger—two parts ramen, one part beef patty—drew vast crowds at the Smorgasburg outdoor food market in Brooklyn throughout the summer of 2013 (mere months after the cronut craze). Soon, the Keizo Shimamoto creation had enough hype to debut in L.A. and even inspired a knockoff in the Philippines, cementing its status as a global obsession. Alas, there’s no official ramen-burger restaurant yet—would-be tasters have to monitor its Facebook page to see where it’ll be served next. ### 11\. The MOS Burger  22 Oct 2008, Tokyo, Japan --- A Japanese Mos Food Services Inc. hamburger restaurant in downtown Tokyo. The Japanese food chain company has announced plans to set up hamburger restaurants in Indonesia to expand its Asian network due to weakening Japanese market sales. The first branch will open in Jakarta in mid-December and plans to open 15 stores in the next three years and 50 within 10 years. --- Image by © Everett Kennedy Brown/epa/Corbis Everett Kennedy Brown—EPA/Corbis The burger may be a mostly American creation, but many other countries have launched their own chains—and burger variants—to capitalize on its success. Among the most prominent: MOS (a.k.a. “Mountain Ocean Sun”) Burger, which opened in Japan in 1972\. Although its signature patty mimics the U.S. classic, other items are designed around Japanese tastes; there’s a teriyaki burger and a grilled salmon rice burger. Similar tactics have worked in other regions, too: in India, Nirula’s chain serves potato and mint patties in lieu of beef, and in Malaysia, Ramly Burger offers patties wrapped in an egg envelope inside the bun. ### 10\. The Jucy Lucy  April 23, 1997 - Mpls, Minnesota, U.S. - See above -- This is a photo illustration for a story on what restaurants work well with certain kinds of outings. In this case, we're recommending that Matt's \_ home of the Juicy Lucy'' burger \_ as a good place to go before or after bowling. So we could shoot people in bowling shoes and shirts, with a few props, at a booth at Matt's. (Credit Image: © Bruce Bisping/Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMAPRESS.com) Bruce Bisping—Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMA Press Although this twist on the cheeseburger—in which the cheese is melted inside the patty—was reportedly invented in the 1920s, when chefs were still experimenting with the burger, it gained national attention in 2008, thanks to a feud between two Minneapolis bars that both claim to have “invented” it. Since then, there have been numerous imitators, proving that a little innovation and a dash of hype is all it takes to reinvigorate enthusiasm for a classic. Correction: The original version of this story misstated the date of invention of the Jucy Lucy. It was put on the menu at Matt’s in 1954. ### 9\. The Lab-Grown Burger  A beef burger created by stem cells harvested from a living cow is held for a photograph by Mark Post, a Dutch scientist, following a Bloomberg Television interview in London, U.K., on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013\. The 5-ounce burger, which cost more than 250,000 euros ($332,000) to produce, was developed by Post of Maastricht University with funding from Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images Simon Dawson—Bloomberg/Getty Images With global demand for meat expected to grow 60% by 2050, the amount of farmland and grain needed to feed those chickens, pigs and cows may be unsustainable. But this burger, which was unveiled last year by Mark Post of Maastricht University, has none of those hang-ups—it’s grown in a lab from cow stem cells, which means it may even be palatable for vegetarians. The only issue: for now, it carries a $325,000 price tag. ### 8\. The Quadruple Bypass Burger  Heart Attack Grill owner Jon poses with a quadruple bypass cheese burger in Chandler, Arizona June 17, 2009\. The restaurant is known for its hospital theme and triple and quadruple bypass burgers. REUTERS/Joshua Lott (UNITED STATES) - RTR24RS3 Joshua Lott—Reuters Jon Basso, owner of The Heart Attack Grill, has drawn national attention (and outrage) for his gluttonous offerings since the restaurant first opened in 2005, offering free meals for those over 350 pounds. His most notorious dish is this behemoth, which layers eight slices of cheese between four half-pound patties and clocks in at nearly 10,000 calories. One regular customer, a kind of spokesman for the restaurant, actually died in front of the Las Vegas eatery in 2013\. The burger became an exemplar of the more-is-more burger culture, preceding a series of other gluttonous dishes including Paula Deen’s doughnut-encased Lady’s Brunch Burger. ### 7\. The ShackBurger  A ShackBurger is seen in this arranged photograph at the first Shake Shack burger restaurant to open in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2013\. The New York burger joint known for its queues will sell ShackBurgers for 235 rubles ($7.15), about 50 percent more than in New York and almost triple the price of a local Big Mac. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images Andrey Rudakov—Bloomberg/Getty Images The 2004 invention—topped with a tangy, secret-recipe ShackSauce—was the first burger to start a food craze, inspiring hordes of eaters to wait in lines that stretched throughout New York’s Madison Square Park. And Danny Meyer’s decision to grind prime cuts of whole muscle, rather than scraps, completely transformed the way we think of burgers, according to Josh Capon, the four-time winner of New York’s Burger Bash. ### 6\. The Gardenburger  Coutesy of Gardenburger The original veggie burger was invented in 1981 at—go figure—the Gardenhouse, an Oregon vegetarian restaurant, and it consisted mainly of leftover vegetables and grains. Before long, it was the most popular item on the menu, living on even after the restaurant closed as a frozen-food item that was packaged and sold internationally. Today, the Gardenburger and its imitators, from MorningStar to Boca, have become mainstays at conscientious cook-outs nationwide. ### 5\. The Burger King Whopper  Every Whopper(R) is a winner. (PRNewsFoto/Burger King Corporation) Burger King Corporation/PRNewsFoto/AP The quarter-pound patty, introduced in 1957, was the fast food industry’s first gimmick burger—developed as a premium alternative to McDonald’s, Wendy’s and others. Burger King’s stunt inspired its competitors to create their own “deluxe” versions. Among them: the McDonald’s Big Mac. ### 4\. The 21 Burger  Courtesy of '21' Club When the 21 Club introduced its gourmet burger in the late 1940s or early 1950s, New Yorkers were shocked that an upper-class establishment would offer something as lowly as the burger—and at the exorbitant price of $2.75, compared with McDonald’s’ 15 cents. Nevertheless, it was a hit. “The \[higher quality\] beef did make a difference,” says Andrew F. Smith, author of Hamburger: A Global History, “and it certainly was something very different than simply fast food.” The luxury burger has since become a mainstay at many higher-end restaurants, from Le Parker Meridien (a high-low offering in the lobby’s Burger Joint) to db Bistro Moderne (the truffle, foie gras and short ribs DB Burger) to Hubert Keller’s (the foie gras-topped Fleur Burger, which costs $5,000 and is served with a bottle of 1995 Château Pétrus). ### 3\. The In-N-Out Burger  In-N-Out Burger's signature Double-Double cheeseburger and french fries are arranged for a photograph at a restaurant in Costa Mesa, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013\. In-N-Out, with almost 280 units in five states, is valued at about $1.1 billion based on the average price-to-earnings, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images Patrick T. Fallon—Bloomberg/Getty Images Whereas McDonald’s focused on fast, In-N-Out focused on food—its signature burger, which debuted in 1948, was made from locally sourced ground beef and fresh vegetables. That approach may have prevented In-N-Out’s expansion (it has just 294 locations today, compared with McDonald’s 34,000-plus), but it certainly hasn’t dampened foodie enthusiasm: the In-N-Out burger routinely tops best-of burger lists, and has inspired the launch of other higher-end fast food chains, such as Five Guys. ### 2\. The McDonald’s Burger  McDonald's Behold, the burger that Smith says “moved fast food from a small operation to a global operation.” The original McDonald’s patty, which debuted in San Bernardino, Calif., spawned an empire that now spans 118 countries—making the price of its beefier counterpart, the Big Mac, ubiquitous enough to serve as an informal measure of purchasing-power parity, as seen in The Economist’s Big Mac index. ### 1\. The White Castle Slider  02 Aug 2004, Clifton, New Jersey, USA --- White Castle System, Inc. was founded in 1921 and is home to the White Castle Hamburger (also known as Sliders) and the first fast-food hamburger chain. The company, the first to sell a million and then the first to sell a billion hamburgers, has more than 380 restaurants. More than 500,000,000 burgers sold last year alone. --- Image by © Najlah Feanny/Corbis Najlah Feanny—Corbis The now-iconic square patty—which debuted in 1921 at the first White Castle in Wichita, Kansas—was the first burger to spawn a fast food-empire: by 1930, White Castle had 10 U.S. locations. But more importantly, the restaurant’s emphasis on cleanliness—facilities were white and customers could watch their burger meat being ground through a window—helped quell fears that all ground beef was as unsanitary as the stuff depicted in Upton Sinclair’s best-selling The Jungle, which was released in 1906\. Its success paved the way for the great American burger obsession. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3892419/shake-shack-chicken/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3892419/shake-shack-chicken/"},"headline":"Shake Shack Could Be Adding This Surprising New Menu Item","datePublished":"2015-05-21T15:30:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:03:22.767Z","description":"A serious rivalry could be heating up","url":"https://time.com/3892419/shake-shack-chicken/","keywords":["Fast Food"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt068a3c974e1402a0/6988512a428a9e5b51ccd5b3/shake-shack1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Claire Zillman / Fortune"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt068a3c974e1402a0/6988512a428a9e5b51ccd5b3/shake-shack1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Shake Shack Raises Prices For Upcoming IPO","caption":"Shake Shack Raises Prices For Upcoming IPO","creditText":"Scott Olson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/fast-food/","name":"Fast Food"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3892419/shake-shack-chicken/","name":"Shake Shack Could Be Adding This Surprising New Menu Item"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Taco Bell Takes Jabs At McDonald's In Ad For Breakfast Menu","description":"Taco Bell, which is adding a chicken-biscuit taco to its breakfast menu and nixing its waffle taco, has loaded its new ad with McDonald's references.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/XiSUnI8p/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-03-24T17:08:08.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XiSUnI8p.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3892419/shake-shack-chicken/","duration":"PT1M33S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3892419/shake-shack-chicken/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```