At Shake Shack, Obama calls infrastructure spending ‘no-brainer’

President Obama and Vice President Biden dined at the burger joint Shake Shack on Friday, calling on Congress to do the right thing on infrastructure and transportation funding. 

The president took the short trip from the White House to the Dupont Circle location to meet with workers from a $9.1 million reconstruction project in the Northeast portion of Washington. 

{mosads}The project, finishing up this week, is in the growing neighborhood of NoMa, North of Massachusetts Avenue. It was helped along by $6.9 million in federal aid, according to the White House. 

The administration has warned that transportation funding will run out this summer without approval of new spending. Obama called it a “no brainer.”

The president and the vice president have recently been traveling the country talking about rebuilding U.S. infrastructure. President Obama spoke at the Tappan Zee Bridge outside New York on Wednesday. And Biden gave a speech in front of the St. Louis Gateway Arch on Tuesday. 

“If Congress does not act by the end of the summer we could have hundreds of projects like this stop,” Obama said. 

Biden noted the transportation funding has been a bipartisan issue “for 40 years.”

Obama said he picked the restaurant because the have “great burgers and pays its employees more than 10 bucks an hour.”

D.C. currently has a $8.25 minimum wage that will increase gradually to $11.50 by 2016. Democrats have been pushing for an increase in the federal minimum wage, but legislation in the Senate stalled last month. 

Michelle Obama ignited social media when she ate at a newly opened Shake Shack in 2011, with many saying it conflicted with her “Let’s Move” campaign. The first lady has said it is OK to splurge every now and again.