Cleaning the Dorm & Eyeball Research

[Dividend Watcher]

As I mentioned in a previous thread, my son is attending school in NYC. With 2 weeks left before the end of his first year, and his decision to stay in the city for the summer instead of coming home , we decided to drive down and clean out everything he doesn't want around when he moves in with his buddy for the summer.

We took off on Saturday afternoon when the wife got out from work and drove the 280 miles ending up in free, unlimited, overnight, on-street parking right in front of his dorm -- in the Chelsea section no less, blocks from Herald Square, the Garden and Times Square!! Our first task was to take him out for dinner as he had just gotten out of work a few minutes before we arrived at 8:20pm.

Despite my son yelling at me about "looking like a tourist", whenever we get to go visit, I try to take advantage of being in the heart of Manhattan to gawk at any trends in retail in the limited time we have there.

The first thing I noticed in our travels were the Duane Reede drugstores near his campus and around Times Square. When I had first gone there last August, the drugstores were nothing exceptional to look at. Brick facades with a big "Duane Reede" sign above the windows with a small Walgreens logo in the corner of the signs. Inside were the requisite rows of shelving with the prescription center in the back of the store. Quite dowdy at first glance. On this trip, all the Duane Reede stores we encountered have been totally remodeled. It appeared the windows were enlarged, a new paint color scheme throughout, a more open and airy appearance from the outside and not dominated by regimented rows of typical drug store shelving. Our limited time prevented me from going in and doing more snooping but the overall look is much more open & inviting. Made me wonder what's in store for the rest of Walgreens' chain.

My son wanted to go to Shake Shack for dinner. We wanted to go check it out on Parents' Day last fall but, when we finally found it in Madison Square Park, it was closed for renovations. This was before the IPO. Since the new location just off Times Square was closer, we hopped on the subway for the short trip and arrived around 9:20pm. It had flashing lights announcing the company above the windowed storefront. There was a line of about 20 people outside in addition to the 15-20 people in line inside waiting to order. The place was packed! It only took about 8-10 minutes to get to the head of the line -- they move people through there. We placed our order, a Shack Burger, Double Shack Burger, a Shroom Burger, 2 orders of fries and 2 different flavors of shakes & a bottle of water for our son. It was ready in less than 5 minutes served on an aluminum 1/2 baking sheet. Of course, then we had to stand around for a couple minutes waiting for a place to put our food down and give it a try. Finally found a place at a stand up table and dug in. All the sandwiches had some lettuce and sliced tomato on them. My wife's Shroom burger (a portabello mushroom cap with some spices and lightly dusted with a flour type coating) barely filled the burger roll it was served on. Our Shack burgers looked hand-formed but were fried and not grilled. The Shroom burger was tasty. My burger -- not so much. Although it was fine, I've had better burgers I made myself. I hate to say it but the Angus burger McDonald's used to serve had a better flavor. The tomatoes had some flavor but not like I'll be picking out of my garden in a couple months. At least it wasn't like the mealy, tasteless tomatoes you get in the grocery store in the winter. The fries were no better than the OreIda crinkle cut fries you buy at the store and bake in the oven. The shakes were good but so are they at Friendly's, McDonalds and the corner ice cream stand. There was nothing that stood out about them. Overall, it was a decent fast meal but at $46.83 for 3 it certainly didn't stand up to the hype. One thing they could do to improve the experience is have someone in the seating area wiping down the tables as soon as someone left. Where we ended up wasn't the cleanest place to enjoy a meal. Our son was happy and that's all that really mattered. As to the company, unless they make a major change/turnaround in their product, I wouldn't plunk down money for the stock. I think when the IPO hype wears off, shareholders will be disappointed.

We ran out of time to do any further exploring. In 24 hours, we drove a little over 600 miles, saw our son and tried out a new restaurant. It certainly has been a whirlwind weekend.