The University City Shake Shack is about to get a tasty new addition to its menu this summer, all thanks to one of the university’s own culinary students. For the past few months, members of Drexel’s Food Lab have teamed up with Shake Shack to create new ice cream flavors called “concretes” for Shake Shack’s University City location. In the early spring, Drexel students from all disciplines used their creativity to submit unique ice cream flavors that they hoped could potentially be sold at Shake Shack. Shake Shack’s Culinary Director Mark Rosati judged the seven submissions April 5 and narrowed it down to the top three choices.
Finalists and guests gathered at Shake Shack May 19 to hear Rosati announce the winner. The finalists included Emily Lloyd, a junior culinary arts student who is currently completing a co-op at La Colombe, and Dana Bloom, a senior culinary arts and hospitality management student.
Lloyd created two of the top three contenders: “City of Butter-ly Love,” a vanilla shake with butter cake, caramel and brown butter bits, and “Tahini-Meeny-Miney-Mo,” a soom tahini shake with honey and sesame brittle.
Bloom crafted “Banana Boathouse Row,” a chocolate, banana and PB and Jams almond butter shake with toasted marshmallows. The chosen winner was Lloyd’s “City of Butter-ly Love,” which was acclaimed for its use of butter cake, a food known to be loved by Philadelphians. After the announcement, guests had an opportunity to try the winning flavor.
This is the first time Shake Shack has ever worked with college students to add an item to their menu.
“Shake Shack was really built off of the idea of being a community gathering place, and we couldn’t be more happy to reach out and work with Drexel in a very fun and unique way,” Rosati said.
The level of creativity that the Drexel students showed extended beyond the ingredients in the ice cream. “Not only were they great ideas, but the names were really amazing too,” Rosati remarked.
“I was completely blown away. I think all of the students nailed it right off the top,” he continued.
During the flavor’s featured time at the University City Shake Shack, one dollar of each sale will go to Drexel’s Food Lab, which is a research group housed within Drexel’s Center for Hospitality & Sport Management that aims to create new recipes and solve problems within the area of the culinary arts. Drexel professor of culinary arts and food science Jonathan Deutsch, PhD, worked with the students to help them create the concretes.
“Working with Shake Shack was a great opportunity for students to get an insider view of culinary development, work with their leadership team to build career connections and apply what they learn in class. Since a portion of the sales will come back to support our students, it’s a win all the way around,” Deutsch explained.
The new flavor, “City of Butter-ly Love,” will be featured in the University City Shake Shack throughout the month of July.