Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Shake Shack should replace McDonald's. Everywhere. Fast food doesn't get much better than this. Except it's not that fast.

Danny Meyer's outdoor burger stand in Manhattan's Madison Square Park, famous for its hour-long lines, now has an indoor offshoot on the Upper West Side. (A third outpost will debut next spring at Citi Field, the new home of the New York Mets in Queens.)

Version 2.0 has the same rules: Wait in line, pay, wait for food, wait for a table. Move your feet, lose your seat. Looks like a cafeteria: bright bulbs and hard seats. The Shack is for eating, not dating.

I waited 30 minutes over the dinner rush on Tuesday, 50 minutes at the same time on Thursday. Why so long? Because Shake Shack achieves something remarkable and dangerous: It makes you feel good about eating junk food. I have three explanations for this.

Reason No. 1: This joint has a neighborhood vibe. There's ``stroller parking'' on both floors; there's even a ``Pooch-ini'' sundae with canine biscuits. Staffers sometimes hand out free frozen custard samples and menus while you queue up. It makes the wait more tolerable. Seating is tight, so strangers share tables and chat. Have you ever conversed with people you didn't know at Burger King? Not recommended.

Reason No. 2: The grub is good.

Four-ounce beef patties ($3.75 and up) are pressed on the griddle for a salty char. The meat isn't as moist or crumbly as a restaurant burger, but a helping of special sauce and a cushy potato roll pick up the slack, making it praiseworthy as a fast food burger.

Snappy Dogs

What's a Shack Stack? A Muenster- and cheddar-stuffed fried mushroom sandwiched between two burgers ($9.50). Eat one, then go home and collapse. Fries ($2.75) are crispy, fluffy and salty. Snappy ``Shack-cago'' dogs get hot peppers, celery salt, relish. They're spicy, messy. Wash one down with a creamy vitamin creamsicle shake ($6.75) -- to make things ``healthy.'' The frozen custards are so rich you can taste the eggs.

Reason No. 3: Burgers need beer. As such, alcohol is served. The gentle buzz of the hoppy house ale (from Brooklyn Brewery) will help that stomachache. House shiraz and other wines are for fancier types.

Shake Shack is at 366 Columbus Ave. at 77th Street. Information: http://www.shakeshacknyc.com.

Scenesters

The six-week-old Double Crown in NoHo serves a different type of fast food. But the scene trumps the cuisine here. The bar was packed on Friday, but there was no wait to eat. No wonder. The hip design firm AvroKo runs the place.

I'm not going to tell you how pretty the industrial-chic decor is because the throngs of scenesters will block your view of it. I'm also tempted not to write about the almost-excellent British Empire food (Think: England meets Asia) because the noise level is often so high it makes eating or talking here a miserable experience. Your voice will hurt.

Chef Brad Farmerie (of AvroKo's Michelin-starred Public) gives us hawker snacks -- Southeast Asian-style street fare. Just a few bites each. Fried whitebait, tiny little fish, are cheap ($6), salty and addictive. So were paper-thin slices of watermelon rind ($4); eat them like sashimi with chopsticks. A pint of delicate poached prawns comes with funky fried prawn heads ($24).

Raw sea bream with smoked vinegar sauce wouldn't be out of place in one of the city's better sushi joints. Oysters were fresh and briny. Steamed duck buns (soft and heady) were Chinatown-worthy.

Jam Drinks

Want something larger? Bangers and mash ($18) is spicy sausages over coarse mashed potatoes. Venison Wellington? Outstanding. Earthy mushrooms and pastry encase juicy, rare deer ($28). Pheasant and licorice pie? A better, peppery version of chicken pot pie ($19).

Rib-eye ``for two'' is listed at $55 per person, so it's actually $110. Very sneaky. That's a steep price for a stringy, tough cut with little char and no seasoning.

Bartenders should measure their drinks carefully; Pimm's Cup and rum-and-ginger drinks tasted like pure alcohol. Jam-based libations were thin and watery.

Advice: Sit at the back bar (it's called Madam Geneva), where things are quieter, and devour the tasty street snacks.

Double Crown is at 316 Bowery at Bleecker Street. Information: +1-212-254-0350; http://www.doublecrown-nyc.com.

(Ryan Sutton writes about New York City bars and restaurants for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Ryan Sutton in New York at rsutton1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 28, 2008 00:01 EDT