I can eat a regular fry and a double burger if I'm hungry. I only ordered the large fries once, and won't do it again. Usually a normal size they overfill the container so much, you get about 3/4 the fries as you get in the big size.

Ok, you guys have convinced me to go to 5 Guys for one thing:
French Fries

I have been to the IN/OUT Burgers in LA years ago and thought the DOuble Bubble was overpriced and ffries mediocre. Our local burger chain in Seattle "Dick's" makes the best fresh cut french fries around.....only if served hot.

A few who like 5 Guys raved about the helpings of condiments on the burger not the quality of burger meat. But I'll test out the fries since it seems the quantity is getting good reviews here.

I had a Five Guys today and it was GREAT...

Whoa this thread is a blast from the past.

A couple of years ago I was flying back from New York and fighting a killer hangover. I ended up in Concourse A at IAD by the Five Guys and I can tell you that a chili burger and some fries really helped take the edge off my hangover ^

It is funny, though...when I lived in Alaska and Five Guys was a "foreign" thing, it was delicious and I ate it every chance I could. When I first moved to the east coast and had one within 10 minutes of my house, I ate there maybe a half dozen times and then haven't been in probably at least a year.

The burgers are good and the fries are great, but every time I go, I can't help but feel like a bucket of [cajun-seasoned] grease was poured over me on my way out of the door...

Exactly. These have to be the fattiest burgers out there.

I've been to a couple of Five Guys and I don't reckon it's all that great - I don't like the fries much and the burgers are nice but not brilliant - and overpriced for what they are. I do like the complete choice over what toppings you have though.

Their seasoned fries aren't bad - and I like the peanuts too - but for fast food burgers in the states, I really liked Culver's.

While eating at In N Out with my son this weekend, the topic of Five Guys came up. Neither of us have ever tried it. We vowed to do so. I just looked at their menu, though: $6.79 for a cheeseburger and $3.79 for a regular fries. Yikes! That's 2x the price of In N Out. I guess we'll try it anyway, but it's going to have to be a heck of a fast food burger to be worth that.

I'm honestly surprised people will pay this much. In California, you can go to Carrows and get 2 for $20 complete prime rib meals (soup or salad, prime rib with potato & veggies, chocolate cake). Seems like a better deal, no?

Five Guys burgers are much larger than In-N-Out. The fries are also a huge portion. I get the middle size, and share between two people.

In-N-Out is fine, but I much prefer Five Guys. Give it a shot.

Thats a bargain! My local Five Guys charges £8 for a cheeseburger - about $12

Five Guys' normal burger is a double-patty burger, and the patties are noticeably thicker than In-N-Out's--3.3oz vs 2oz each.

Also, the regular fry is enough to split between 2-3 (or more) people. I haven't tried the new smaller fry size (previously, it was just "regular" and "large"), but I suspect it's still more than one person should eat (well, ignoring the fact that, technically, you should never eat fries).

To me, Five Guys' is more like a traditional, juicy diner burger than In-N-Out's. Both are good, but both satisfy different cravings. In-N-Out has a cleaner, fresher taste (unless you Animal Style-it), whereas Five Guys has a big, juicy flavor, especially if you doctor it up with lots of toppings (I usually get L/T/O plus green peppers, ketchup, A-1 sauce, and a little bit of hot sauce).

It's interesting that you bring up the price as being on the high side, though. Five Guys' walls are invariably plastered with clippings from newspapers both local and distant with claims that they've been voted best burger and mentioning how their burgers are so cheap and such a great value. Yet while I have no issue paying $6+ for a burger (likely a product of having grown up in Alaska, where Carl's Jr's "Six Dollar Burger," which was supposed to be as good as but cheaper than a burger you'd pay $6 for in a sit-down restaurant, was actually closer to $7), I've gone in with friends and family who have commented that the food is expensive. I suppose it is expensive if you're comparing it to McDonald's, Burger King, and other fast-food restaurants; it's a bit unfair to compare it to In-N-Out, with which its footprint doesn't really overlap very much (although that's changing) and which is sort of an aberration of great quality at a great price. Within its original footprint, though (primarily the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic), it occupies a definite middle ground between fast food and sit-down diners and is a clear step up--in both price and quality--from the former.

Only if you can stomach the quantity-over-quality product that is served by Carrows. ;)

If you want a really good burger that doesn't have fat dripping down your arm, try Bobby's Burger Palace.

The food is fresh (non-frozen) and the meat non-greasy.

And it costs about the same.

I would say that Carrows' quality compares favorably to a fast food restaurant. Heck, they're serving prime rib meals for $10: that meat has to cost more than hamburger. My baked potato was huge and fresh. My salad as green as anything on an In N Out burger. Chocolate cake wasn't gourmet, but I wouldn't expect it to be at a USA chain diner.

I think the whole buzz about 5 Guys is because it is not as widespread and when one opens in your town, it is great because it is different.

Kinda like Coors beer (see: Smokey and the Bandit). When it was so hard to get, it was so much better. Now that you can find it in any town, it is just beer. A more recent example is Fat Tire Amber Ale. There was a craze 10 years ago when you couldn't find it just anywhere. Now, it is just another beer most people skip it.

When the 5 Guys opened near me, there were lines out the door. Now, the crowds are typical.

To me their burgers are equivalent in quality to Habit, but more, so we usually do the Habit when choosing a fast-casual burger. Their fries are expensive, but huge, we share between 2 or 3 people.

That's why five guys should only be an occasional treat-otherwise I feel like I'll actually die soon :p

Five Guys to me is simply fast food and fast food is extremely unhealthy and best avoided.

Nonsense.

A burger from a fast food place, a fast casual place or a fine dining place may have the exact same nutrient contents.

This x100. When I first discovered 5 Guys, I ate there once a week. Then it dropped to once a month, then once a quarter, and now it's only when a friend suggests it. The last time I was there, my bill was $15 and I thought, "I can get a diner burger and table service for the same price."

I've had Five Guys, In-n-Out, and The Habit. Of the three, I prefer The Habit; the best beef of the three, and the most substantial burgers (while still being generally fast food size and price.) Not quite as broad a condiment range as Five Guys, but a good bit more interesting than the very limited menu at In-n-Out. Prices are higher than In-n-Out, but cheaper than 5 Guys (at least around here.)

The one near me is also rarely as busy as the Five Guys near me or even the least-busy of the In-n-Out locations

The only thing I prefer Five Guys for is that they usually (always?) have a Coke Freestyle machine, and the fries are both good and plentiful.

I haven't had Shake Shack to compare, but friends from the East Coast love it.

I had lunch at Five Guys yesterday. It was my first visit in about 6 months. I ordered a small bacon burger, small fries, and a small drink. $13 for lunch at a fast food place? :eek:

Ray Croc must have been asleep to not have figured this out. Don't know who he is >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kroc

dh

Went to the one in BLI again last month on a layover. TSA wanted to 'inspect' my burger and fries :p

I've reached the point where if I want a burger, I want a really good one, and these days there are only 2 chains that I consider really good. Much as it annoys me to say it, Bobby's Burger Palace is one of them (Bobby Flay himself I find incredibly irritating). I get their bunless burger over a salad: good quality beef, good quality greens, and their fries aren't bad at all.

The other place we like is The Counter, which has a variety of meat choices for the patty, different buns and some salad options for those who don't eat buns. I just wish there was a location nearer to us than the one in Times Square.

We used to go to the local Five Guys when my son really wanted fries, but since they switched over to the horrible 50 flavors Coke machine for soft drinks, we don't even do that. (NOTHING out of those machines tastes right!)

I agree about Bobby Flay, and it almost stopped me from going in :) :) :) :)

I've never heard of The Counter. I'll have to look it up. They did open a Bobby's Burger Palace not too far from home, and we get their once a month the get our "good burger" fix.

I haven't walked into a Five Guys in at least 3 or 4 years, and the one near my home doesn't seem to do too much business any longer.

Not everyone has a Bobby's Burger Palace or similar near them. It's part of why places like Five Guys can succeed. They don't promise the world's best burgers, but it's not a bad burger.

The counter is great, although in a conversation about 5 Guys it's comparing a restaurant-style (or arguably, upscale diner-style) single-large patty burger with a fast food-size much smaller one. There's more meat in a single patty at The Counter than in two at Five Guys.

Restaurant-style prices too, albeit at the very reasonable end of that at least by the somewhat elevated standards around here. We have a better and cheaper local burger-place*, but my wife likes the counter a lot for the bowls and it's both better and a better value than a lot of the other local places.

(* Jeffrey's; they may not be wrong in saying they're the Bay Area's best, but they're certainly the certainly the best in the part of the mid-Peninsula between Burlingame/San Mateo/Belmont/San Carlos which is about the range of my 'hood where I can say I've pretty much tried everywhere that may qualify that isn't brand new.)

It's a thread about burgers. ;)

For many a year Kirk's was the Bay Area's Best Burger. Is it still in business?
(first location was California Avenue in Palo Alto, then they opened a couple more, don't remember exactly where)

p.s. mid-Peninsula starts at Redwood City and goes south. That's my home territory.:cool:

Not every good burger comes from a chain restaurant. Sometimes great food comes from independent, local places. (like that one outside Harrisburg :D)

When I weighed 280-290 lbs, I was a big fan of Five Guys and Fudruckers, and to a lesser extent, Smash Burger. But in my journey to below 200 lbs, (I'm at 185 now) those sort of massive burger slathered with sauce and cheese places became a thing of the past for me - my main fast food vice nowadays is El Pollo Loco. I haven't had one of those sort of slather-burgers in over 2 years.

Wait, which one??

Which one?
Not everyone who eats at Five Guys weighs that much. I know some people who could eat there every day and still not gain weight.

I hate those people. Clearly I am not one of them. :p

(No offense intended to any naturally-skinny people here on FlyerTalk--well, maybe a tiny little bit of offense intended. :p)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/dinin...ger-world.html might be a better place in general, compared to one mainly comparing upscale fast food places.

Seems to have moved, if http://kirks-steakburgers.com/ is the right Kirk's. I thought I'd tried them, but the place I'm thinking off was near University not on California, and they were definitely not already in Town and Country back when I worked next to there.

I tend to avoid Palo Alto, but if I have to be down there for something else, I'll give them a try.

As tempted as I am to engage in an argument about what constitutes "upper" "mid-/middle" and "lower" Peninsula around here, definitions vary and I'll simply say that having spent pretty much the last decade around here (Foster City and San Mateo, I've never seen anyone refer to the area as "upper peninsula" or if giving an upper/middle/lower qualifier anything other than "mid-peninsula"

And mind, my point was not that the Burlingame-San Carlos chunk is all of the mid-Peninsula -- since while we differ on the direction the one thing we seem to agree on is that Redwood City is part of it, and while I'm down there for the movie theater a fair bit RWC is a big place (and changed a lot since I worked there in 1999-2001) and I've not tried the restaurants nearly as extensively as nearer in to San Mateo.

If Five Guys was my only choice, I would go to McDonald's.

I don't like grease running down my arm when I eat a burger.

How could you go to McDonalds when you said Five Guys was your only choice? :D

I actually don't think the burgers are horribly greasy--a little bit so, but not a ton more than any other burger (except for McDonald's, whose burgers are not greasy because they're made out of cardboard, apparently). It's really the fries that are greasy, plus it seems like there is aerosolized grease in the air of the store.

Someday I will have to do an experiment: get a burger only (no fries) to go and have someone else go in the store and pick it up...and then see if I feel like I am covered in grease after eating the burger. To date, I have not done that experiment bceause a) since the burger is best appreciated fresh, I always eat in, and b) if I'm going to plan to die early of a heart attack by eating a Five Guys burger, then I might as well enjoy the experience fully and go all-in and have some cajun fries, too. Thus, I always eat in and get a side of fries, and I always then feel like I've taken a bath in their fryer when I leave...

Ask Kipper; she was the one navigating. :)

They put a 5 guys on my college campus during my senior year (2008) and I put on the senior 15 after the first semester. Last time I ate there I felt like I took a couple of days off of my life.

The joys of growing up :(

What on earth is wrong with greasy burgers? Isn't the lovely taste of fat
most of their appeal?

Disclaimer: in college I used to sit at table with a dormmate who would
take his burgers and squeeze them between napkins and go "See?" I ate
them as is. He eventually won the Nobel prize in Medicine. I did not.