From Shake Shack to Magnolia Bakery, airlines are serving fan favorites in the sky

11.01.2025 - 15:41 / thepointsguy.com / Danny Meyer

The sky's the limit when it comes to new venues for your favorite restaurants.

You may be used to seeing restaurant brands and chains expanding to new cities and venues like sports arenas or even airports. However, eateries are showing up more often in a rarer setting these days: in the front cabin at 35,000 feet.

Airlines and restaurants are not exactly new bedfellows — for years, airlines have leveraged famous restaurants and restaurateurs to elevate their brand credentials, sometimes with the gimmick of fine dining in the skies. Often, partnerships have focused on celebrity or celebrated chefs who are tapped to design bespoke menus for carriers to serve in premium cabins.

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The trend in recent years, however, has been less about creating a unique, haute cuisine experience and more about recreating familiar tastes from the ground. Fewer airlines have been channeling Danny Meyer's Gramercy Tavern and are instead opting for Shake Shack.

That's partly due to the changing nature of inflight service. Meals have all but vanished from the domestic economy cabin. Service in first class has been more about simply having a good meal rather than offering a fine dining experience that's elevated from what's offered in coach. It's still important for the food to be good, but Michelin stars are not the expectation these days.

It's different in international business class, where meals are still offered in coach — at least to a degree. A focus on more refined dining still exists in many places, even as airlines have struggled to return to their prepandemic offerings.

Ultimately, restaurant partnerships may offer airlines a ready-made meal or dish, outsourced to the experts on the ground; some partnerships also offer a bit of publicity and offer a fun shake-up of what's on board.

Right now, a few different treats from the ground are being served on board. Read on to find out what they are.

Delta Air Lines kicked off a new restaurant partnership last month when it began offering Shake Shake's famous burgers as a meal option on board. In what the airline dubbed a "first-of-its-kind" collaboration, the airline began offering Shake Shack-branded entrees in first class this month on flights over 900 miles departing from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). The airline says it will expand the partnership to other hubs throughout 2025.

Shake Shack may be fast-casual, but the chain has roots in fine dining. It was originally started as a hot dog cart serving dishes out of Danny Meyer's Eleven Madison Park as part of an effort to revitalize the eponymous park in New York City. It grew into a permanent kiosk and exploded in popularity, leading to a massive