Oh, Shake Shack, all is forgiven: Make us world class!

Thank you MC Slim JB, my favorite Boston food scribe, for not only advocating for a Shake Shack, but for defending the notion that people may want to *gasp* eat out in a city (or even in that city's centerpiece green space). To all of the folks who keep deriding Shake Shack for not being local enough, produce a viable local alternative. You keep mentioning the Clam Box and every other fried fish place within a spit of a commuter rail stop, but you neglect to mention that neither Clam Box nor Woodman's nor Huots nor anyone else who puts batter to bait has ever given downtown so much as a thought. Now you want them to come swooping in to save us from good burgers and excellent shakes and fries because Danny Meyer doesn't fit your provincial definition of what's suitable for the Common? Please. Ken Oringer, Todd English, Barbara Lynch, Jasper White... none of them have stepped up to do what Danny Meyer is offering and has already succeeded in doing elsewhere. For Boston's "food scene" to give him nothing but grief for the attempt is just backward.

"We don't need a burger joint." No, what we don't need is another downtown vacancy where a ratable could be just because the city of 1,000 mac and cheeses is put off by the idea.

P.S. While we're at it, let's stop Balkanizing the street vendors and let them set up shop beyond Park Street, Faneuil, Downtown Crossing and Fenway.