Earlier this week when I was in Madison Square Park, I saw a familiar sight – scores of people queuing for Shake Shack, a burger bar in the center of the park. And it’s the best advertising, because I assumed I was missing something. No wonder lots of modern restaurants and retailers are moving towards quick service ordering solutions like a restaurant kiosk to keep up with demand.

Until now, I’ve never endured the Madison Square Park queue, but today Ryan and I headed there to find out the secret everyone else seems to know. I’ve never seen Shake Shack before moving to New York, but whenever you mention it here, the response is always the same: ‘Omigod it’s so goooddd.’

Ryan and I joined the queue this afternoon and timed how long it took.

Half an hour and a lot of people watching later, we reached the front, which was a pain in the ass but also not as long as I expected. We ordered fries, shakes (peanut butter for me, vanilla for him) and a mushroom burger to share and after another 10 minutes, we finally got our hands on our grub and headed for the grass.

In an early bonding moment a few months ago, Ryan and I learned that we both shared a bizarre love of dipping fries in milkshakes (but courtesy of McDonald’s, rather than here) and so were excited to give it a go. If you plan on doing this (you probably won’t), stick to the vanilla shake as it works much better.

The food was pretty good – the fries weren’t half as greasy as you’d get elsewhere and the burger had a tasty mayo relish thing going on. And the peanut butter shake was gorgeous. While it was good, I’m not sure it was worth waiting a total of 40 minutes for. I guess the long queue convinces everyone that this is simply the best.

Also – the squirrels there are enough to put anyone off. I made the mistake of throwing a chip to one, and before I knew it, we were having a standoff with this horrid creature. He got so close to us and even though Ryan was trying to scare him away, I was certain he was going to pounce. So we left. Squirrel 1 – Lydia and Ryan – 0.