Shake Shack, the seminal and wildly popular New York burger stand that introduced superior breeding to fast-food burgers, hot dogs and frozen custard, is coming to the UK.

Shack Shake’s celebrated Shackburger will debut in London middle of 2013 in Eliza Doolittle’s old hood: The Market Building near the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden.

The original Shake Shack was a kiosk opened in New York’s Madison Square Park in 2004 by Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. It was odd to learn that Meyer, the visionary behind such acclaimed New York restaurants as Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, had opened this deceptively humble burger joint and odder still when Shake Shack began to draw long queues stretching the length of the New York lunch hour beyond 60, then 90 and soon 120 minutes.

By backing Shake Shack ‘s addictive burgers and shakes with conscientious sourcing, all natural ingredients and one of the most trusted names – his – on the Manhattan dining landscape, Meyer gave sophisticated New Yorkers cover to eat like kids again.

Shack Shack is now a chain with 18 links: five locations in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn, one in Queens, one on Long Island, one in Saratoga (upstate New York), two in Connecticut, two in Washington DC, two in the Miami area, one in Philadelphia and two in the Middle East (Dubai and Kuwait City).