Shake Shack's expansion from New York cart to national chain (2001-2015)
Danny Meyer started Shake Shack as a hot dog cart in Manhattan's Madison Square Park in 2001. It grew into a permanent kiosk in 2004 and expanded to cities across the country before going public in 2015.
The brand drew long lines at each new opening, making every location a local news event.
Shake Shack became a model for how a single-city food brand scales nationally through careful market entry.
A licence application is the kind of early, unglamorous step that precedes a hospitality brand's arrival in a new city.
