Little did I know that when I walked into the Shake Shack Innovation Kitchen on a March afternoon, I’d be walking out with a new favorite food: pimento cheese.
As a lifelong New Yorker (with a brief interlude in New Orleans, where I somehow missed pimento cheese in favor of other Southern staples), I don’t have much experience with this spread (or dip), which is traditionally made with cheese, mayonnaise, and pimento peppers.
However, as I learned during my visit to try Shake Shake’s new Clubhouse Pimento Cheese menu, it’s a huge deal in the Southern US. In fact, it’s been called the caviar of the South.
You may be asking: Why is Shake Shack’s menu called the Clubhouse Pimento Cheese menu? Great question, and one I had myself.
The answer? It has to do with the Masters, which gets underway next week.
The food at Augusta National, home of the Masters Tournament, is famous for being cheap and tasty — and no item upholds those two requirements more than its famous pimento cheese sandwich, which costs $1.50.
The two sandwiches I tried actually made their debut last year at an off-site Masters event from a Shake Shack food truck, to great reviews. The recipe hasn’t changed from that original debut last April, but now it’s finally ready to make its nationwide debut.
Here’s what I thought of the new menu.
The Clubhouse burger was solid, but not my favorite
The Clubhouse Pimento Cheese burger, which costs $9.99, is the same classic Shake Shack quarter-pound burger with lettuce, tomato, and ShakeSauce, but with pimento cheese added.
While pimento cheese traditionally uses pimento peppers, Shake Shack uses its own Shack cherry peppers, which are found on the SmokeShack burger.
“They got a little heat, they got a little sweet, and they have acid from vinegar. So, it’s got all the things that kind of tingle your taste buds,” John Karangis, the executive chef and VP of culinary innovation at Shake Shack, said during my taste test.
The chain updates its menu with seasonal, limited-time offerings every few months. Karangis said Shake Shack CEO Rob Lynch was the one who asked for the pimento menu — since he lives in Atlanta, he noticed that pimento cheese was everywhere and thought it would be a good fit for the menu.
I thought that the burger was good, but the pimento cheese didn’t really pair well with the other components. I do understand why people eat it by itself, though, and I did appreciate that it certainly has a kick.
The chicken sandwich paired much better with the pimento cheese
I liked the chicken sandwich, which also costs $9.99, much better. It consists of a piece of breaded chicken, lettuce, pickles, ShakeSauce, and the pimento cheese spread.
The tanginess of the pimento cheese paired nicely with the equally tangy pickles, while the chicken’s peppery seasoning cut through, and was complemented by the smokiness of the pimento cheese.
I basically inhaled this sandwich, while I took only a few bites of the burger. I also didn’t miss the tomatoes from the burger, which made that sandwich soggier than it needed to be.
I’d buy a side of the pimento cheese itself, without the chicken bites
To get the pimento cheese side, you have to order it in person; you can’t get it online.
I didn’t think the Chicken Bites and the pimento cheese paired well, exactly. The pimento cheese was too thick to be a true sauce or dip for the nuggets — I had to use a fork to pile it on top of the nuggets. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the most convenient.
However, I was obsessed with the Chicken Bites, which I’ve somehow never tried before. They’re the closest thing I’ve had to the dearly departed McDonald’s Chicken Selects. They were crispy, slightly peppery, and addictive.
After a few tries at pairing them together, though, I decided to stick with eating them separately.
A six-piece Chicken Bites order costs $5.99, while a 10-piece order costs $8.49. The side of pimento cheese is $1.99.
The Clubhouse Pimento Cheese menu debuted nationwide on March 31 and will be available for a limited time.
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