Shake Shack

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Everyone has a favorite Danny Meyer restaurant; ours is Shake Shack. A weekly visit could cause you to rethink the necessity of having to get out of town during the summer. The park is that lush, the all-American snack-bar grub that good. Yes, the line at lunchtime is as bad as your local Duane Reade. But go late in the afternoon, when the crowds have thinned, sit at one of the regulation-green Parks Department tables, and have one of everything on the menu—perfect, smallish L.A.-style burgers that have no equal in New York; dressed to the nines Chicago-style dogs with authentic Day-Glo-green relish; a purple cow made with Grape Crush from the bottle; and frozen custard that tastes like a dream. You can even gulp beer or have a good half-bottle of wine inside a designated quaffing zone, no brown bag required. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld