Summer at the Shack by Allison Hill

Allison Hill is an incoming freshman from Cy-Fair High School in Cypress, Texas. 

This summer I’ve been working at a local burger place called The Shack: Burger Resort (or just The Shack for short). It’s got a fairly small indoor kitchen and the rest of the space is outdoor patio complete with painted picnic tables. Some are covered by a massive easy-up style tent, some not, and we’ve got a party room which is actually another kind of indoor space, but it’s still open to the rest of the patio. We have a pretty sweet playground, with a repurposed bus with slides and tires to bounce around on. The icing on the cake though, in my opinion, is the fact that we have a resident cat named Tom Tom. She’s a real sweetheart who absolutely loves getting her belly rubbed and being in the middle of everything.

The Shack Patio Area

And then there’s the food. These gourmet style, made to order burgers are amazing, huge, and generally unique. To give you an idea, here’s a brief list of the more popular ones;

5 Napkins: burger with bacon, cheese, and a fried egg on top

My personal favorite, The Fireman: burger with bacon, pepper jack cheese, garnished with fried pickles and a spicy honey drizzle

HannahBanana: A burger topped with caramelized bananas, banana chips, and a spicy Thai peanut sauce

The Bad Decision: A burger served between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches

And last but not least, the Grease & Weasel: A cheeseburger between 2 bona fide name brand Honeybuns grilled to perfection

The infamous Grease & Weasel in all its glory

We also have some pretty sweet sides/appetizers like....

Southern Rock Fries: classic french fries topped with queso, brisket, and bacon

Last Kiss Fries: Fries with bacon and a boatload of garlic

Chorizo Chips: Homemade potato chips topped with queso, chorizo, green onions, diced tomatoes, and a fried egg

And for those who drink beverages of the alcoholic persuasion, we’re especially known for our huge selection of craft beers (by which I mean we’ve got 200+ varieties in stock)

So basically, food and drink of hyperbolic proportions and seating in the great outdoors! Which sounds nice . . . until you remember that this place is in Cypress, TX which is SUPER HUMID AND A MILLION DEGREES DURING THE DAY. 

I started out working about 10-15 hours a week, which was pretty easy to balance with running. I’d have a super intense day or two of bussing tables (which consists of walking around nonstop for 5-6 hours, a break if you’re working a double shift, then another 5-6 hours of walking). Then I’d spend the rest of the week sleeping, running, eating, netflixing, and procrastinating on reading The Circle. But then everything changed when the fire nation attacked when we opened a second location in Cypress, about a month ago. Since then, my hours have increased dramatically- now I’m clocking about 30-40 hours a week which is a lot more difficult to balance with running. Most days, it seems like the only time my legs get a break is when I’m sleeping. For the first few weeks of 30+ hours a week, my legs were perpetually sore and tired, which meant more than a few sluggish runs but eventually the soreness subsided and I found a balance between working and running again. I haven’t always been able to increase weekly mileage as quickly as I would like, but I’m confident that the extra time on my feet at work has helped me build a solid base for this upcoming season. 

The kitchen 

The main struggle is staying hydrated and finding snacks to stash as I make my rounds keeping tables clear and clean. Thanks to years of having lunch at 11am & cross country first period, I’m used to basically eating breakfast (pre-run snack & post-run chocolate milk), second breakfast (“lunch”), a small meal after school (actual lunch), and dinner sometime thereafter. I mostly work the dinner shift (4 or 5pm to 10pm), which unfortunately overlaps with actual-lunch-time and dinner. My first coping strategy basically equated to a soda cleanse. I would alternate between a water and rootbeer throughout my shift. After a few days of that, I started to feel really sluggish during my runs and I decided that the soda had to go. Nowadays I bring a water bottle to work and refill it a couple times per shift and bringing chocolate milk or something with actual nutritional value to drink when I start to get hungry.

One of the perks of bussing tables is that I blow everyone else in my family out of the water in terms of how many steps I accumulate in a day, my PR being about 37,000 steps over the course of a 10ish hour shift. Lately, though, I’ve gotten a chance to run food, host, and take to go orders more often which means less steps but the possibility of tips from to go orders (holla) and also getting to see people really excited about their humongous gourmet burger they finally get to consume now that you’ve brought it to them. At the Shack we work hard, but we also play hard when given the chance and sometimes get to test out new playground equipment, like an inflatable waterslide. 

The Shack employees checking out the new waterslide!

Despite the initial soreness, hours of sweating my booty off, and dealing with the juice at the bottom of trash cans, I’m glad I had a chance to work at the Shack this summer. It’s helped me become more acclimated to the heat, learn the importance of hydration and a proper diet, and how to keep going even when I’d rather just collapse in a sweaty heap on the ground. Long story short, I’m ready for cross country season.