Shake Shack CEO Rob Lynch wants to “blow past” 1,500 units domestically. Getting there, however, will require a comprehensive tech upgrade.
Shake Shack on Wednesday unveiled the technology strategy that will support the fast-casual chain’s planned growth. Dubbed Project Catalyst, the plans include the rollout of new point-of-sale and kitchen display systems, but also an expansion of AI capabilities that will be more integrated in daily workflow.
The chain also plans to build on its use of data to make guest engagement more personal and make better operational decisions, the company said. Last year, Shake Shack launched a $1, $3, $5 value platform through its app that helped established a significant guest database, on which the brand can build.
And all of this will support the chain’s long-awaited loyalty program, expected to launch later this year.
Justin Mennen, Shake Shack’s Shake Shack’s chief information and technology officer, said much of the work on Project Catalyst has already begun and will be rolled out through the course of the year.
“At the end of the day, everything we’re doing, when it comes to AI and the data foundation, is really practical things that we can immediately drive results with our operators and with our corporate team members, so that we can step back and provide more in hospitality,” he said in an interview with Restaurant Business. “All the technology that we roll out is so that we can provide better Enlighted Hospitality for our guests.”
Enlightened Hospitality is a brand value rooted in the chain’s beginnings as a concept developed by New York restaurateur Danny Meyer that later went public. It’s a term the brand refers to often.
For Shake Shack, 2025 was a year of setting operational groundwork, which Lynch expects will begin to pay off in 2026. Project Catalyst is another layer of that groundwork, which has also included work on the menu, improved drive-thru speed, investments in marketing, and “de-risking” the supply chain.
Same-store sales were up 2.1% in the fourth quarter, including a 0.5% increase in traffic. The company reiterated its guidance for 2026, expecting same-store sales to increase in the low-single digits.
The chain added 45 company-owned restaurants last year, ending the year with a total of 659, including licensed units. This year, Shake Shack expects to open 55 to 60 company locations.
A key element of Project Catalyst will be a move to the “cloud-native” unified commerce platform Qu, which will supply the POS and KDS.
Qu also brings its proprietary in-store cloud and edge computing system called Qube, which Shake Shack said will enable faster, more precise service, especially during peak demand times when bottlenecks tend to occur, said Mennen.
The new systems will allow restaurants to “dynamically sequence orders across our channels,” said Mennen, which will improve accuracy, boost throughput and reduce stress on team members.
“We’ll be able to do things like prioritize kitchen workflows in a much better way than we do today,” he said.
The POS and KDS will be tied to the loyalty program coming, which Lynch has yet to unveil. He has said it will involve incentives, like reward points, but it won’t just be a transactional points-based program.
“That’s not good enough for us,” he said at an analyst presentation last month.
“I want it to be a connection point,” he said of the loyalty program. “We have to build that connective tissue with our guests to create that lifetime value.”
Mennen said loyalty at Shake Shack will be done “in a Shack way” that will bring special experiences to life, though he said more will be unveiled later this year.
Project Catalyst will also bring a new generation of AI capabilities into daily workflows. Mennen said that will allow for faster decision making in real time.
“Instead of digging through a report of what happened yesterday, they can instead quickly get an understanding of what’s happening in real time in their restaurant, what needs attention,” said Mennen. “And then we’re going to start actually proactively resolving those issues wherever we can, or alerting the appropriate folks within the restaurant to take action.”
That might be something complex, like a tech issue, or something as simple as a forecast of rain and how the restaurant might prepare for that, he said.
The goal is more-informed decision-making that will allow operators to run better restaurants.
Mennen said the chain has been rolling out upgrades across the digital platform and data infrastructure, as well as pilots of the AI capabilities. The POS and KDS systems have been tested in labs and there will be a point when new restaurants opening this year will open with the Project Catalyst capabilities, and existing restaurants will be upgraded.
UPDATE: This article has been updated to clarify Shake Shack's growth plans.
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