Real Time Shack Cam Shows That What’s Good For Us Is Not Always The Best For Business

Forward reeled the mind in jerky, five-second stop-time intervals, when it was learned that Danny Meyer had installed a Web cam on top of Shake Shack, his Madison Square Park dog-and-burger stand, so that customers, who often stand in line for an hour and a half for a Chicago dog and cheese fries, might, as the Web site notes, “plan your time, check out the line.”

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The line could be short when you checked on your computer, but what would it be like by the time you got there? Also, even if you see the line, how do you know how quickly it will move?

“Yeah, it’s tough,” Mr. Meyer said. “You can’t look at a camera and have an idea of what any human being is going to order. He could put in an order for one hamburger, he could order 20 more for his friends. We’re perhaps not as sophisticated as we would like. I do think it will be useful.”

When the cam idea first came up, “there were people on our team who said this is the dumbest thing we could do,” Mr. Meyer said. “If they see a line, they won’t go there. I said if that’s the case we will have found our Yogi Berra moment, wherein Yogi Berra says the place is so crowded nobody goes there anymore.”