• by Steve Ellwanger , August 6, 2019

Shake Shack has chosen Grubhub as its home-delivery partner -- while at the higher end of the food chain, Mastercard just opened an upscale rooftop restaurant in the TriBeCa section of Manhattan.

From its humble roots as a hot dog cart in New York City in 2003, Shake Shack now has 245 locations in 29 states and 16 countries. The company just released second-quarter earnings, reporting a sales increase of 33%, among other positive developments.

On a conference call with the financial community, Shake Shack said it was testing Grubhub's nationwide delivery coverage in Morningside Heights, New York; the River North area of Chicago; Livingston, New Jersey; and Darien, Connecticut.

Among the more interesting takeaways from the earnings call was Shake Shack’s continued growth overseas and iteration of formats in the United States and abroad. In May, the company opened its first 24-hour restaurant at a highway rest stop on New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway.

“Whoever wrote the rule that stopping off the highway on your next road trip couldn’t be a great experience?” CEO Randy Garutti said on the call. “We’re working to change the perceptions of captive audience timing, bringing fresh quality to everyday places that generate so much daily traffic.”

The same search for predictable traffic has seen Shake Shack open up at 12 national and international airports -- including two at Kuwait International Airport. Garutti said that later this year, Shake Shakes will emerge at airports in Las Vegas, New Orleans and Minnesota.

Meanwhile, Mastercard has embarked on a culinary journey by partnering with an entity known as Spring to create Mastercard’s first restaurant, called Priceless and located at the rooftop Spring Terrace in lower Manhattan.

The word Priceless, of course, comes from a longtime ad campaign created in 1997 showing simple moments of daily enjoyment heightened by use of a Mastercard.

The new Priceless restaurant will accept reservations exclusively via Mastercard and payment via Mastercard or cash, according to a spokeswoman.

The food will feature a "restaurant-in-residence model,”  with the first offerings from The Rock from Zanzibar, Tanzania; Teruzushi from Kitakyushu, Japan; and Lyaness from London, all curated by Chef JJ Johnson.