Shake Shack (Enterprise Center)
1401 Clark AvenueThe kids’ big Christmas present this year was tickets to the US Figure Skating Championships at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
My kids aren’t in to traditional sports. They really don’t like football or hockey but they will watch figure skating for hours. I kept telling people that going to US Championships for my kids is like going to the Super Bowl.
I didn’t want to miss too much work or school because we will miss enough once their skating season starts in March. I got the weekend pass tickets which gave us access to all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
We started Friday with breakfast at Waffle House in Collinsville, IL then drove in to St. Louis for the day. The day is divided up in to two sessions with two separate tickets. The first session is shorter and only includes the teams/skaters that were in the bottom third of the standings after the short programs.
That session took about an hour and a half. I assumed we were going to get kicked out of the arena after that session was over then have to come back in for the evening session but that wasn’t the case. They pretty much just made an announcement that if you had tickets for the evening session to go check out the vendors on the concourse. No one ever scanned my evening tickets so I guess it was kind of the honor system.
We had talked about leaving and going to find dinner but by the time we did that, I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the building and it was getting pretty late anyway. We only would have had an hour or so to get dinner before the doors opened for the next session.
We decided to just eat inside the arena.
We all wanted different things and we all ended up eating at different times. I got everybody back to our seats then headed back towards the Clark Street entrance to grab something for myself.
There are quite a few options for actual name brand restaurants inside the Enterprise Center. The one I chose on Friday is on of my favorites.
The Shake Shack in the Enterprise Center is near the Clark Street entrance near Portal 4 of the arena. There are three full Shake Shacks in St. Louis plus this one at the Enterprise Center. The last time I was in St. Louis, I ate a the Central West End location. This Shake Shack looks like a concession stand because that’s essentially what it is. A concession stand with the Shake Shack branding and food.
The menu at the Enterprise Center Shake Shake is pared down to just a few items. Burgers, fries, dogs, shakes, and drinks. Everything is made and waiting to be grabbed off a warming shelf when you order. The prices are slightly higher than they are in the store. I ordered the Double Smoke Shack and an order of fries. It cost me around $19. Had I ordered that same meal in a store outside of the arena, it would have cost about $15. I grabbed a pop from one of the Grab and Go stations in the arena because I wanted a bottle so I didn’t factor that in to the cost of my meal. I don’t think you can complain about paying $4-$5 more for a meal inside the Enterprise Center.
I started eating the fries on my way back to the seat. Shake Shack’s fries have never been my favorite but they’re fine. They’re pretty standard crinkle cut fries with some salt and pepper seasoning. There was some ketchup packets thrown in to the box I’m not a ketchup guy. I usually order these with cheese but I thought it might be too much to try to eat fries in my seat with cheese and not make a mess.
The Smoke Shack burger has always been one my favorite fast food/fast casual burgers. The double burger is two 1/4 lb Angus beef patties topped with American cheese, bacon, Shack Sauce and chopped cherry peppers. It’s really the cherry peppers that make this such a unique burger. They’re kind of sweet but kind of spicy at the same time. This burger from the Enterprise Center is pretty much what I’d expect from a Shake Shack anywhere. I ended up eating this one while walking to because as soon as I sat down, my son wanted to go wait in a line to meet Gracie Gold.
This is way better than typical concession stand food and I didn’t really feel like the price was outrageous. I knew we were going to have to spend quite a bit of money on food when we planned this trip. We were at the Enterprise Center for about ten hours on both Friday and Saturday. If I’m going to pay a little bit more for food at the arena, at least it’s quality food.
SW Michigan Dining 