My friend Alyssa tells a story about being in five guys hours in Boston. She’d just settled down with her food at her table when she overhead an over-served guy likely wearing a Shawn Thornton Bruins jersey talking to himself as he inhaled a cheeseburger. “Ahhhh,” he sighed, contentedly, in between bites. “This is simply the right amount of guys.”
Once I started writing this, friends, I needed an extended, drawn-out story here. But when I heard that, I deleted everything. Because dammit in the event that Sam Adams-swilling street poet didn’t sum it up perfectly.
“When you can provide a good haircut or if you can serve a great drink at a bar or whenever you can serve a good hamburger, you can generate income in America.” — Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell’s mother
Where did Five Guys originate from? In 1986, the 4 brothers Murrell opened a takeaway burger joint in Arlington, Virginia, just a stone’s throw from DC, AKA Cap City. As they started the place with their parents, that constituted “Five Guys,” therefore that name came to be (and subsequently, a younger brother will be born a couple of years later, giving them five actual guys as sons). The principles were simple: hand-formed, fresh-ground beef; fries cooked in peanut oil; no freezers. As each burger was created to buy, they introduced complimentary shelled peanuts as something to snack on when you waited.
The place took off, therefore, within the next 20 years, they methodically opened four more in and around Cap City, then slowly begun to expand into lower Virginia and Maryland. Starting in 2003, they expanded nationwide. Nowadays there are over 1,500 Five Guys locations all over the world. According to their site “another 1,500 (are) in development.”
Competitor context. The clearest competitors to Five Guys are Shake Shack (around 200 total locations), Smashburger (370), Habit Burger (250), and Fat Burger (over 200). The concept of fast-food burger chains versus fast-casual is actually a scary topic for me personally. For example, In-N-Out naturally suits this conversation (and it has 340 locations) as the burger is usually discussed (by me, no less, later), inside the national conversation of cult chain burgers along the majority of these joints, yet it is more fast food than fast casual (the presence of drive-thrus in many locations is definitely the differentiator to me). But this shit is hard to define, and giving me anxiety, so let’s just move ahead.
What exactly is Five Guys seeking to do now? With this hyper-aggressive expansion plan, Five Guys is quite clearly attempting to exert their influence within the Great Burger Wars from the fast-casual era. Along with nearly four times the amount of restaurants as their next biggest rival, they’ve got an impressive head start. Also, quite famously, they never advertised whatsoever until around three years ago — which, if you believe regarding it, is sort of a means of advertising by itself amirite?!? As well as then, their ad footprint was purposefully small and really only on the internet and with social media. They may be savvy Guys (and Girls).
How I made it happen: During the period of two weeks, I visited two Northern California Five Guys an overall of 3 x. I ordered each item on the actual menu, plus one off-menu item, and ate a lot of peanuts for no reason at all while I was waiting.
A note on the peanuts: They’re fine? Shelling peanuts is more about the process for me, which I found mildly relaxing. But ultimately, they’re still just peanuts, because the phrase “I got it for peanuts” doesn’t suggest they’re a massive value-add, I’m not spending more time upon them.
Five Stars/Guys Who Definitely Are Enjoyable To Be Around: Many moons ago, I reviewed virtually every major chain cheeseburger. Much towards the chagrin of my In-N-Out fanboy California family, I proclaimed Five Guys as obtaining the best. (Note: this was before Shake Shake began their intensive expansion, therefore they weren’t yet within the mix, and it had been a confusing time for that fhyxvv food vs fast-casual debate I mentioned earlier.) But after spending the last few years eating 330 burgers from independent restaurants across the country, I hadn’t been to what time does five guys open.
But lo and behold, upon my revisits the burgers were again a small revelation. Each and every time, I saw char on the meat, hand-formed patties that broke apart easily, a highly-griddled bun that didn’t get soggy, and the exclusive usage of American cheese, the ONLY ACCEPTABLE CHEESE on burgers. They aren’t perfect (they have a tendency to undercook the griddled onions, which doesn’t let them properly caramelize), however are definitely inside the In-N-Out,/Shake Shack pantheon of quality fast-casual burger chains that sit above all the other major players.
Essentially it’s just a grilled cheese, but with an extra burger patty and grilled onions. The patty melt benefits from the truth that they flip more than a regular bun and double grill it as to what would normally become the within the bun as the outside, and 2 layers of cheese encasing the burger patty. The grilled onions within the mix makes the entire thing a gooey, griddled delight. Honestly, I can’t recommend it enough. I ate the complete thing after I’d sampled two burgers, two sausages, two other sandwiches, two orders of fries, as well as 2 milkshakes. I do believe my body created another stomach in order to sate my needs.