Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer's perpetual two-hour-long wait—and the media blitz that's had everyone from Good Morning America to pop star Zendaya buzzing about the shop—can all be traced back to this one milkshake. It all started last October, when owner Joe Isidori's wife asked him to make her a cotton candy milkshake.
He worked with Brittany Stark, who handles Black Tap's social media accounts, to create an over-the-top shake rimmed with vanilla frosting and candy-coated chocolate pearls, then topped with whipped cream and tufts of cotton candy reminiscent of a Treasure Troll's coif. They posted a photo to Instagram, and the likes soared off the charts.
"Fifty-plus people a day were coming in and sticking their phones in my face, pointing to the milkshake and saying, 'I need this,' so we decided to add it to our menu," Isidori explains.
From there, other milkshakes followed: The pretzel-and-M&M-coated Sweet N' Salty, the Zendaya-approved Sour Power, even a chocolate chip cookie-crowned treat.
When lines started forming around the block, Isidori was quick to take action, reimagining his milkshake station to better keep up with demand. That also meant making some significant sacrifices, cutting his seating from 20 chairs to 15.
"Many businesses fall victim to viral foods, where they just can't keep up with the demand and it crushes them," he explains. "Even though we have fewer seats, our sales have doubled. Everybody who comes in orders a shake and a burger. I had to make sure we could handle that output."
As soon as the restaurant closed for the night, a construction crew would come in, working from around midnight to 5 or 6 a.m. to make the necessary changes to triple the milkshake station's space, double the size of the fridge, and bring in two extra fryers.
"There were haters who came in and said, 'you're going to flop. You won't be able to handle this [craze],' but we really focused, right away, on making every station run as efficiently as possible."
Considering people started lining up at 10 a.m. in 36-degree weather to try a shake when we visited, we'd say the improvements were well worth it.
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