Business Insider/Jessica Tyler The Shake Shack restaurant on Astor Place only has automated kiosks - no cashiers.
- Shake Shack opened its first cashierless location in Manhattan in October 2017. The intention was to move towards cashless stores with digital ordering and payment systems.
- By mid-2018, the fast-casual burger joint had abandoned these plans, in part because of customer backlash.
- In the future, Shake Shack restaurants will have automated kiosks in conjunction with cashiers.
- We visited the cashless Shake Shack restaurant in New York City, and found that the experience was a lot easier than the reviews made it out to be.
In late 2017, Shake Shack set out to go cashless, opening its first kiosk-only location in New York City.
Though the intention was to transition to a more seamless operation and become more digitally inclined, the plan backfired - by May 2018, the chain had already abandoned its plans to go cashless.
On an earnings call in May, CEO Randy Garutti said, "Some of the things we've clearly seen is that our guests do often want to pay with cash."
He continued: "In the first rollout at Astor Place, we did not accept cash at all, and there are people who have told us very clearly, 'We want to pay with cash.'"
One Yelp user wrote in a review of the Astor Place location, "The new kiosk ordering system is the worst. It makes this Shake Shack 'card only' and you can barely customize your food the way you can when you order with an actual human being. The kiosks are also supposed to make things go quicker, but the wait is even longer than at a Shake Shack where you can order with an actual person."
Though the plans to go cashless were abandoned, the fast-casual chain still plans on adding kiosks in its newest locations, though those kiosks will be in conjunction with cashiers who accept cash. Shake Shack said in its May earnings call that it planned to open four or five new locations with kiosks by the end of the second quarter.
We visited the Astor Place Shake Shack in New York City to see what it was like to order at the kiosks. Here's what we found: