Photo used under a Creative Commons license with scaredy_kat.

You would think that others would have learned their lesson from Chef Spike Mendelsohn when it comes to talking culinary smack about D.C. I was a bit surprised to read this tweet from the Going Out Gurus that said, “Shake Shack opened today, putting #DC on the map at long, long last.” At first it garnered a mere head shake, until I clicked through to the corresponding article, “Shake Shack finally puts D.C. on the map,” in which Alex Baldinger writes:

Like the grand opening of the first Studebaker dealership in sleepy Anytown U.S.A., Shake Shack opened in Washington this morning, finally putting the District of Columbia on the map.

Well, not quite. But given the number of pixels dedicated to New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer’s roadside burger chain and its arrival in Dupont Circle (and soon, Nationals Park), one had the feeling that this was no ordinary burger joint grand opening. This was big.

This was validation; yet another example of a New Yorker bestowing his culinary stamp of approval on the D.C. market…

Whether or not you agree with D.C.’s status in the tiers of the food world, it is insulting to view Shake Shack’s arrival as culinary “validation.” There are Shake Shack locations in Miami, Saratoga Springs, Dubai and Kuwait. But, obviously, the culinary stamp of approval is so much better in New York.

The reality is that Shake Shack’s opening is just another data point in the wave of local “hysteria” for foodstuffs. Just check the line of almost any food truck at lunch rush. Or imagine if California’s In-N-Out arrived on our fine streets: there’d be many a Washingtonian weeping in to their Double Double like a Texan, which would likely occupy double the number of pixels that Shake Shack’s opening has. But no one would be fussing that it was culinary validation from Californians.

The reality is that any restaurateur who has a basic understanding of the U.S. economy should know that with enough capital and the right business plan, D.C. is one of the most economically viable markets for a restaurant. It’s the same rationale that has made the city the market of first choice for a number of international chains (Nando’s Peri Peri, Paul Bakery, Wasabi, Vapiano). If anything, we should be talking about how attractive the D.C. market is, and how absurd it is that it took Meyer and others to open other restaurateurs’ eyes.