Shake Shack's Newest Menu Item Is Another Fried Chicken Sandwich

Shake Shack’s newest menu item is a spin on its fried chicken sandwich, the Chick’n Shack. For the new Salt & Pepper Honey Chick’n — available beginning today, October 6 — a chicken breast gets "slow-cooked in buttermilk," dipped into batter, dredged in flour, fried, and "topped with salted honey and ground black pepper." It’s served in a bun sans lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, cheese, or special sauce, and priced at $6.29.

However, as Eater NY notes, the new chicken sandwich is currently only served in Brooklyn. For the last few years, whenever Shake Shack introduced a new menu item, the dish was tested in Brooklyn (the location of the company’s test kitchen and three busy Shacks) and then later rolled out nationwide. Knowing this, the Salt & Pepper Honey Chick’n could be the next new permanent menu item on Shake Shack’s menu worldwide. If, that is, Brooklyn’s discerning denizens are feeling peckish.

As Shack obsessives will recall, Shake Shack’s last fried chicken experiment — during the summer of ‘15 — was met with much fanfare when it was initially introduced in Brooklyn. By the time it was released nationwide the excitement for fried chicken was at a fever pitch.

Reached by email, Shake Shack culinary director Mark Rosati says, "Brooklyn is a hotbed for food trends, and Brooklynites (including myself) are always down to explore new things." Rosati also shares that "the Chick'n Shack is currently the third highest selling individual item on our menus domestically." It's no wonder then that the company has decided to expand into that space with a new chicken sandwich offering.

With Chick-fil-A on an expansion tear, and chef David Chang’s Fuku chicken sandwich concept still in an experimental phase it’s hard to tell if fried chicken is still fast food’s little darling. Will Brooklynites queue up for a sweet-and-spicy fried chicken sandwich from Shake Shack? They’ll have the opportunity beginning at lunchtime today.

• Shake Shack Clucks With the Menu by Introducing Yet Another Fried Chicken Sandwich [ENY]
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