Dive Brief:

• Shake Shack will open its first Latin American outpost in Mexico City next year, with the goal of opening 30 locations across the country by 2028, according to a company press release. The company will team up with Grupo Toks, a food and retail group that operates over 200 restaurants in Mexico including some Starbucks, to help with the expansion. 
• The chain has opened more than 180 locations worldwide, including over 70 outside the U.S. in countries like Istanbul, Moscow and Seoul. Eater also reported that the company plans to open its first mainland China store in Shanghai next year. 
• Shake Shack, which touts its commitment to local flavors, plans to work with purveyors and producers in the region. 

Dive Insight:

While the trendy, hormone-free burger chain teased on Twitter in January that it had no plans to enter the Mexican market, the draw of Latin America may have been too much as the region faces a major influx of U.S. chains. Shake Shack follows a parade of American burger chains permeating Mexico, starting with McDonald's in 1985 and followed by Burger King, Wendy's and Carl's Jr.

Hamburgers aren't the only items on the menu for Latin America. According to a Yucatan news outlet, Mexico could see 500 Pizza Huts throughout the country as Yum Brands focuses on Latin American expansion in partnership with Spain-based Telepizza. IHOP also announced in July its plans to expand in Latin America, starting with Peru. Despite the push, expensive and cumbersome supply chains, combined with civil unrest upsetting the ease of doing business, can hinder American chains from growing further into these markets, but streamlined warehousing opportunities could alleviate those pains.

Shake Shack’s cult-like status and "anti-chain chain" appeal garnered quick fans since it opened its first shack in New York’s Madison Square Park in 2004, but it has by no means followed traditional fast food expansion patterns.

Unlike other fast food chains, which tend to expand domestic footprints before turning to international markets, Shake Shack went to Dubai after being wooed by a Kuwait-based franchising company in 2011 — long before considering populous U.S. cities such as Chicago or Los Angeles. In fact, the second U.S. Shake Shack opened in New York a whole five years after the first. Generally, Shake Shack has prioritized lucrative Asian markets that have buoyed established American chains including KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald's and Starbucks. According to Bloomberg, Asia will get almost 100 more Shake Shacks over the next decade. Tokyo will have 10 Shake Shacks by 2020, another 14 in Hong Kong and Macau by 2027, as well as 25 in both South Korea and East China by 2028.

Meanwhile in the U.S., Shake Shack has opened new restaurants in mid-sized markets like San Diego, St. Louis, and cities in Florida and Texas. Same-store global sales slipped a bit early in 2017, but those numbers were more than $20 million higher than the same quarter in 2016. Analysts struggle to compare Shake Shack's growth to other chains due in part to that unusual global-before-domestic expansion pattern.

In its 2015 IPO offering, the forward-thinking company of then-86 locations committed to opening at least 10 new restaurants each year, then upped that number to 12 and again to 14. Since then, its expansion — on pace to reach its anticipated count of 450 in 25 years, per CNBC — has been somewhat fast and furious, especially in the U.K., mainland Europe and Asia.