Shake Shack’s Asian expansion continues: The NYC-born burger and fries darling opened in Hong Kong earlier this week. The restaurant is located in the IFC Mall, a skyscraper overlooking the city’s waterfront that’s home to scores of high-end stores like Tiffany & Co. and Rolex.
Asia represents a gigantic area of growth for Shake Shack. After expanding into Tokyo in 2015, where it plans to have 10 locations by 2020, Shake Shack opened in Seoul in 2016 and intends to expand with 25 stores across South Korea. It’s slated to open 14 outlets in Hong Kong and Macau by 2027; its first mainland China store is scheduled to hit Shanghai in 2019, with eventual plans for 25 across Shanghai and East China through 2028.
Though the mainland Chinese market is already crowded with U.S. fast-food chains including McDonald’s and KFC, it presents massive opportunity for American brands: As Clarissa Wei reported for Eater earlier this year, China’s fast-food industry is currently growing more than three times faster than the U.S. fast-food industry — and that’s despite the fact that foreign businesses were mostly prohibited there just three decades ago.
Highly publicized domestic food scandals like tainted baby formula and mislabeled meats mean the average Chinese consumer has a significant amount of distrust for China-based food companies and restaurants; American brands are considered more trustworthy by comparison. Shake Shack’s emphasis on fresh, “all-natural” burgers plays into that perception.
While brands like McDonald’s and KFC have done their best to cater to Chinese tastes with new menu items, Shake Shack serves largely the same menu of burgers, chicken sandwiches, fries, and frozen custard worldwide. The new Hong Kong store does have a new milk tea shake, however, per Bloomberg, as well as a concrete made with vanilla custard, french toast, bananas, and peanut butter sauce.
Shake Shack’s Asian expansion is fueled by a licensing agreement with Maxim’s Caterers Ltd., which also operates Cheesecake Factory locations in China. Starbucks expanded into China in 2016 and says the world’s most populous nation will eventually be its biggest market; it’s currently opening a new store there every 15 hours.
• Shake Shack Hong Kong [Facebook]