The Golden Arches are watching their rival gain ground as a growing burger chain announced plans to expand its footprint across the country.
The New York City-based burger chain Shake Shack shared this week that its new long-term goal is to have 1,500 locations nationwide, a figure that would quadruple its current holdings.
In 2024, Shake Shack ended the fiscal year with 329 company-operated stores, same-store sales up 4.3%, and total revenue up by 14.8%.
The company’s CEO, Robe Lynch, shared his plans to expand during Monday’s presentation at the ICR conference. Among the major plans to help the brand grow is building bigger suburban locations, a move from the company’s usual smaller, urban stores.
“Getting from 330 up to 1,500 Shacks will start with building on this great foundation that has been put in place, but it’s going to take some changes too, and some new ways of thinking,” Lynch said. “We anticipate growing our revenue by double digits –which is growth consistent with what we’re executing today—and delivering double-digit systemwide unit growth too.”
Lynch went on to say that the company will have to go to “places we haven’t really been before” while discussing a push to suburban America.
“We’re looking at smaller footprints so we can go into real estate that we didn’t previously have access to, and that’s going to open up the aperture and allow us to expand rapidly,” he shared. “In order to do that, we need to be able to deliver consistent margins with where we are today, with smaller Shacks getting less volume.”
Shake Shack CFO Katie Fogertey shared with Nation’s Restaurant News that part of her company’s success comes from how it portrays itself to the public.
“We spend about 1% of our total revenue on advertising,” Fogertey told the outlet. “That’s very low compared to peers. So, as we’re continuing to scale, we have the benefit of being known as the underdog, whereas our larger peers already have this very big established base on advertising.”
Still, to catch up with its older brother burger chains, Shake Shack has a long way to go. At the conclusion of 2024, McDonald’s reportedly owned and operated 13,598 locations in the US and even more abroad.
For smaller chains, Burger King owns and operates 6,718 stores in the US, Wendy’s owns and operates 6,010 US stores, and Five Guys has 1,470 US stores.
On the other side of the US, Shake Shack’s West Coast competitor, In-N-Out, which has yet to expand beyond its current region, owned and operated 415 US stores at the end of 2024.