TAMPA — About a year from now, crowds could start queuing up for burgers, crinkle-cut fries and frozen custard at the Tampa Bay area’s first Shake Shack, which is coming to the Midtown Tampa development.
“Shake Shack is an iconic brand with worldwide recognition, and is yet another first-to-market restaurant that we’re thrilled to bring to Tampa,” Bromley Companies chief executive officer Nicholas Haines said in an announcement Wednesday. “We’ve followed Shake Shack from its first location next to our office in New York’s Madison Square Park, and appreciate the delight and appeal it has to its customers.”
Shake Shack launched as a kiosk in the park in 2004 and now has more than 170 locations. It features Angus beef burgers, chicken sandwiches with no added hormones or antibiotics, griddled flat-top dogs, frozen custard, and crispy fries.
At Midtown Tampa, the restaurant will occupy 3,200 square feet at Midtown’s main entrance off Cypress Street.
Midtown Tampa, a $550 million project, is expected to open in time for the Super Bowl in February 2021. The project, now under construction on 22 acres near Interstate 275 and N Dale Mabry Highway, will include the bay area’s first store by specialty outdoor retailer REI Co-op, as well as the region’s largest Whole Foods Market, office building, 400 apartments, and a dual-branded Aloft and Element hotel.
Midtown Tampa developers have put a premium on bringing first-in-the-market stores and restaurants to the project. Along with Shake Shack, that list includes the Oprah Winfrey-backed True Food Kitchen, Burtons Bar & Grill, and a new restaurant by chef Chris Ponte, known for Café Ponte in Clearwater and On Swann in South Tampa.
