By Blake Royer I spent 4 hours on Saturday standing... 
I spent 4 hours on Saturday standing in a sweaty line for cheap cookware. Broadway Panhandler, a kitchen supply store that generally has a massive selection and discounted prices, was having a moving sale . 75% off! Free Food! Live Music! All of these things made me happy. I dragged myself out of bed and left the house for t...
I'd eaten the good and the bad , the big and the small , and paid dearly as a result. The quest had gotten serious, and I was ready to admit defeat and bow at the altar of the shack if I had to eat another huge, dry burger. A true alternative to the Shake Shack seemed like an idea too good to be true.
But like all quests, the best inevitably came last, far away, in a place...
Burgers and Cupcakes
458 9th Ave, at 36th st.
Distance from Shake Shack: 0.94 miles
Travel Time: 27 minutes
Burgers and Cupcakes is humorous only to New Yorkers, who can't help but smile at the gall of building a restaurant that caters solely to the big apple's idiocy to stand in line for the most obscenely simple things. I was spurred to undertake the odysse...
Pop Burger
60 9th Ave, b/w 14th and 15th.
Distance from Shake Shack: 0.81 miles
Travel Time: 24 minutes
This place is way too hip for its own good, and you could walk by its meatpacking district location a couple of times before you noticed that it’s not just a club. In fact, there’s just a tiny blue “pop” stuck on the door and that’s all--incognito i...
American Burger
100 W 32nd St
Distance from Shake Shack: 0.53 miles
Travel Time: 16 minutes
Once I'd scanned both New York Magazine's and Village Voice's online restaurant section a few times, it was time to delve into some of the less charted and less proofread parts of the web. That usually involves a good Google scan and then devolves into hour lon...
Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop
174 Fifth Ave, at 22nd st.
Distance from Shake Shack: 0.05 miles
Travel Time: 2 minutes
You want close to Shake Shack? How about half a block from Madison Square Park? Charmingly vintage, Eisenberg’s is run by a big friendly guy who takes every order and scrawls it on a paper bag, sending it down to the far end of the restaurant...
Most of the places we've reviewed for our Alternatives to...
Most of the places we've reviewed for our Alternatives to Shake Shack extravaganza of grease have been within a short walking distance of the Shack. But few would allow you to order your food, receive your food, and still leave you enough time to walk back to Madison Square Park to enjoy the grub the real way.
Fortunately,...
Bruce’s Burger
33th and 7th Ave.
Distance from Shake Shack: 0.79 miles
Travel Time: 23 minutes
Decked out in full 50's dinner kitsch, Bruce's Burger tries to conjure up the good times of the care free suburbs in the middle of Midtown chaos. It's billed in neon as a drive-in, which of course is impossible considering it doesn't even butt onto a street, being t...
As the quest continues , the well reviewed alternatives start disappearing, and things get a little more treacherous. Big, greasy, disgusting, messes sprout up at every corner, making me want head back defeated into the line of shame at Shake Shack for some real food. But thanks to some random posting on Chowhound , I was given a little guidance. Today's search for the best altern...
New York Burger Co.
303 Park Ave. South
Travel Time: 2 minutes
When the grease fumes clear on this little quest for Shake Shack Alternatives , there is really only one place that deserves the mantle, and that is the New York Burger Co. A block away from the shack, NY Burger Co. provides the shortest walk, shortest line, and shortest wait, which all transla...
Blake and Nick live in Chicago and have written for The Paupered Chef and other publications since 2006.