Shake Shack To Open Near Columbia University Campus

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — In a sustained effort to corner the hamburger market in New York City, Shake Shack has secured a lease to build a new location in Morningside Heights.

The popular burger chain is expected to open its newest eatery on the corner of Broadway and West 116th Street — across the street from the Columbia University campus — by the end of 2017, the Columbia Spectator reported. More than 50 different businesses were interested in the location, but eventually Shake Shack was able to snag the lease in the university-owned building.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that our office received over 50 different possible tenants who called in completely unsolicited to try and get into this space,” Gail Beltrone, vice president for campus services at Barnard, told the Spectator. “We took every suggestion and every potential tenant very seriously, but we really viewed our role as an obligation to the community to make sure that we were establishing what would be the best fit.”

The space has been vacant since March 2015, when a fire tore through Ollie’s Noodle Shop and Grille forcing it to close, the Spectator reported. The space is currently boarded up. Shake Shack coveted the space for years, the company's CEO Randy Garutti told the Spectator.

"For seven or eight years I have said to our team, ‘Guys, can’t we get a Shake Shack up near Columbia and Barnard?’” Garutti told the Spectator. “I have said for years before that this spot, the only spot I really want, is that old Ollie’s spot on 116th and Broadway.”

Shake Shack did not immediately respond to a message left by Patch.

Read the Columbia Spectator's full article here.

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