Shake Shack (DFW Airport, Terminal C)
2400 Aviation DriveI’m a such a dad when it comes to flying.
After an eight day trip to Los Angeles, it was time to fly home. Our flight out of LAX was scheduled for a little after 9:00.
We had to return a rental car and I have a lot of extra bags I have to take for work so I wanted to get to the airport early. I always have such mixed experiences when flying for work and I stress out a little bit.
We checked out of our hotel in downtown Los Angeles around 4:45 AM. I picked up the car from the valet and we headed to the rental car lot. There was no traffic and checking the car back in took about 10 minutes. There was a shuttle waiting for us so we hoped on and took it to the American Airlines terminal.
We got inside and I went to the ticket counter to check my extra bags. There was no line. Got it done in less than 10 minutes.
Headed up the escalator for the TSA Checkpoint…there were four people in front of me. Got through in less than ten minutes.
It wasn’t even 6:00 AM yet….so yeah, we had some time to kill. That went way too smoothly for checking in a LAX.
I walked around the terminal, got a drink, and picked up some souvenirs for the kids. I looked at a few places to eat but didn’t really want breakfast. I figured I’d get something to eat when we got to our layover.
Our connection back to Grand Rapids was Dallas-Fort Worth. We had about an hour and a half layover and we were in early. We had to go from Terminal B to Terminal C so we found the Skylink and got to our gate.
Neither one of us knew what we wanted so we started walking. We got all the way back to the beginning of Concourse C and knew we had to make a decision at that point.
We passed a Shake Shack near Gate 6 so we headed back there.
The Shake Shack at DFW opened in early 2019 making it the 6th location in the Dallas area. The restaurant is part of a little food court that also has a Dickey’s BBQ Pit and an Einstein Bros. Bagels. It looks a lot like a mall food court as you just walk up to the order counter that is built in to the wall. It’s not like some of the other restaurants at DFW that have entrances that take you in to the restaurant.
We don’t have a Shake Shack in Southwest Michigan so I tend to stop at one whenever I travel. I’ve got some experience with the growing chain having been to restaurants in Chicago, Washington, DC and Detroit.
I put in an order for a Smoke Shack and an order of cheese fries. I didn’t get a drink because I still had a bottle of pop I had bought at LAX and I don’t like drinking a ton of liquids when I fly. The cost was just under $20.
The orders were being called out by first name and there was a TV monitor with names next to the pick up counter in case you didn’t hear it.
We were starting to getting pretty close on time. We had about twenty minutes until boarding when my name was called. I grabbed the bag then headed to the small dining room just around the corner for Shake Shack customers. My co-worker wanted to get back to the gate so he grabbed his meal and started walking. I wasn’t super panicked about time yet so I sat down and ate pretty quickly.
I started with the fries and they were super fresh. They’re not really special fries. They’re frozen crinkle cuts with that are fried on high heat in soy oil. The outside comes out really crispy while they inside is light and pillowy. They put a lot of salt on the fries too so you either need a ketchup, or, in my case, cheese to dip them in. You could pour the cheese on top of the fries to make them true cheese fries, but I choose to dip. There’s not quite enough cheese sauce in the little cup provided but I used the fries to make sure I got as much out of it as I could.
The Smoke Shack is one of my favorite fast food/fast casual burgers. The sandwich has two Angus beef blend burger patties topped with cheese, Applewood smoked bacon, chopped cherry peppers and ShackSauce. The cherry peppers are everything to this burger. The sandwich is delicious without them, but the peppers add a sweet, smoky flavor without being too spicy. The ShackSauce kind of gets lost in the mix here and that’s fine with me. It’s the cherry peppers that make this a craveable sandwich.
I ate pretty quickly then headed back to my gate. I made it with about five minutes to spare before boarding started.
I was a little bummed we weren’t in one of the Terminals with a Whataburger but this was still a welcome find as we walked through the Terminal aimlessly looking for something to eat. I passed up a Shake Shack in downtown Los Angeles when I went for a walk and ended with slices of pizza. Finding this one in DFW made sure I didn’t go Shake Shack-less on this trip.
SW Michigan Dining 