This morning, fast food aficionados all over New York began planning their next trip to Brooklyn, as the foodie-favorite Shake Shack announced that its three burger joints in the borough are offering a new sandwich for a limited time: the ChickenShack.
The restaurant chain says the sandwich will feature a ”crispy all-natural and antibiotic-free chicken breast with lettuce, pickles and buttermilk herb mayo.”
If this sounds like a familiar recipe, it might be because it’s very similar to the McChicken Sandwich, which the Golden Arches describes as its, ”[f]amously crispy chicken topped with mayonnaise, shredded iceberg lettuce and served perfectly on a toasty bun.”
Shake Shack said it made the chicken sandwich because customers had been asking for one. (McDonald’s did not immediately respond to Quartz’s request for comment.)
Shake Shack and other higher-end burger chains have become a growing problem for McDonald’s, whose sales fell 2.36% in 2014. And now, at a time when the venerable chain sells more chicken than beef, increasing competition in this sector isn’t likely to be seen as good news.
While McDonald’s has been in trouble for some time now, it has made a number of announcements recently to try to reverse the tide, including one in March, when it asked suppliers to stop using antibiotics in raising its chickens. But the growing preference for healthier, more transparent food continues to lead customers right out the door and over to the counters of newer chains such as Chipotle, Whataburger and Shake Shack. (Even Chick-fil-A, which doesn’t market itself as healthier but is also going antibiotic-free with its chicken, saw a 14.4% sales growth between 2013 and 2014, according to the market research firm Technomic.)
Shake Shack went public in January and its stock price more than doubled in the first day of trading, going from $21 to $45.90. Its stock surged in late May on the news of a “Chicken Shack” trademark application.
Today the stock price is hovering around $53.