Originally Posted by greggwiggins

I've been going to Five Guys for more than 20 years. Their very first, now closed, store was a carryout-only place about a mile from my home. It was tucked in between an auto parts shop and a little family-run bakery (the original source of their buns) in an Arlington, Va. strip mall on the corner of Glebe Road and Columbia Pike, with the founders of the company working the grill as often as not.

The peanuts at the counter thing started a couple of months after they'd opened when they got a deal on roasted nuts from another store in that strip mall and they decided to make them available to customers waiting for their carryout burgers and fries. Now it's a trademark of the Five Guys experience.

And while I'm amazed to see Five Guys expanding across the galaxy, I'd have to agree that sometimes the franchisees don't live up to the standards set by the original store and my 'those were the good old days' memories. I most miss the freshly baked buns from Brenner's Bakery. The bread they use now doesn't live up to those.