Someone’s fibbing

August 13

Recently the good people at Grub Street reported that a Shake Shack would be opening at Citi Field, which will replace Shea Stadium as the New York Mets’ home field in 2009.
Then they reported that Danny Meyer, head of the Union Square Hospitality Group, offered them free burgers if they could figure out a way for him to do that.
If you’re not in New York or are simply disinclined to pay attention to places where you must stand in line for long periods of time for a burger and/or milkshake, you might not know that Shake Shake, owned by USHG, is the darling of Madison Square Park and much loved by people who are willing to stand in long lines for a burger and/or milkshake (to see just how long the line is at this moment, you can check out the burger stand’s Shack Cam, because the USHG people are clever).
Anyway, Grub Street observed that Meyer’s message wasn’t an outright denial and decided that their sources had it right all along.
But my colleague, Elissa Elan, who recently took on the post of Northeast bureau chief here at Nation’s Restaurant News, just talked to the USHG people and to the folks at Aramark, the contract feeder in charge of foodservice at the new stadium.
The Union Square people also offered her free burgers if she could find a way to open a Shack Shack in Shea (okay in Citi Field; my apologies for indulging in inaccurate aliteration).
The Aramark folks said they had never heard of Shake Shack.
Ah, but this is the frustrating thing about being a reporter — the inability to confirm something even though you’re almost positive that it’s true.
But sometimes it’s not true. Just today I was reminded of that fact when it turns out that a news item I wrote about a chef taking a new job turned out to be false, even though the source was the chef himself.
I hate when that happens.