Wanna know why it's called Five Guys?
Because it takes the salary of five people to pay for one meal.
There’s a Five Guys in my city and whenever I’m reminded of it, I always wonder why I’ve never tried it before. Then I remember I always walk past it after seeing the prices on the menu.
It is good, but not worth the money. They were reasonable back when they first opened in my area. Then it went about 2x the price in a year. And kept going up.
That's disappointing, in my area fast food didn't really start skyrocketing in price until about 2019. But since then oh my God it is only gone up. My $12 meal without rewards has turned into a $19 meal with rewards which is ridiculous to me
I haven't gone to a fast food joint myself unless the family is also going since then cuz it's not worth it
Guess you only got a family of 3.
The Wendy's, McDonalds, and Hardees In my town are all closed or closing soon. They've priced their garbage quality food right out of what the people that would go there can afford. Good riddance. My only sympathy is for the folks losing a job, but working Fast food suuuuucks. I hope those folks find something better.
But they give you so many fries!
It varies by location. The one near my house can hardly be bothered to fill the cup. One like an hour away I used to go to for work fills half the freaking bag.
Putting fries in paper cups is a stupid idea to begin with.
Not at any of the ones I've been to :( It's more than McDonald's but it's never been a problem to finish them.
Should be called Fries Guys
Wendy's $5 or $6 meal deals... you get a double stack, nuggies, fries & a drink, and a frosty with each purchase for a year if you get their key tag.
Key tag?
Edit: oh, it's a 3 dollar keychain.
It's $1 at mine
Wendy's is also shit
Dave isn't around to enforce quality anymore.
At least it's cheap.
Go to McDonald's if you want to spend $60 for shit. At least 5 Guys is still good
5 guys is ok
Compared to chains? I'd say it's generally quite good
It's also not very good. I don't get why some people rave about it. Local places are usually much, much better.
It wasn't bad when it was a 5 dollar burger.
Now it's not even $5 fries
It's not bad food, but it's definitely not worth the money.
I used to think that Five Guys in my country had awful prices because of some weird franchising agreement. Seems I’m wrong
Pro tip: If you order Five Guys through DoorDash, UberEats, etc, you should know that Five Guys doesn't start cooking your fries until the driver gets there. Since these services usually give their drivers two or three stops at a time, and drivers know they will be delayed at Five Guys, drivers go out of their way to rearrange their pickups to get to Five Guys first. The Five Guys delay gives the other places a little extra time to complete their orders, so hopefully the driver will be able to get in and out with no additional delay.
It also means that your food will be waiting on the driver's cold passenger seat the longest possible time.
All that is just a matter of practicality. The drivers are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Some, though, take it a step further: it's not fair for the customers of other, better stores to suffer from Five Guys corporate policy. So they make sure the Five Guys order is not just picked up first, but also dropped off last.
I've never ordered Five Guys through a delivery app but I have NEVER had a good experience. Every meal has tasted like it was waiting on the driver's cold passenger seat the longest possible time.
People post shit like this as if they're being forced to eat fast food. Make your own fucking food if you're worried about the price. It's been like that forever.
Make your own fucking food if you’re worried about the price
Yeah why bitch about something being wrong. Just ignore it. I'm CERTAIN it'll get better. We'll step right in line.
It’s been like that forever.
It wasn't $80, it was maybe $50
McDonalds for 4 was now $30, it's now $60.
Especially this food. Like it is stupidly easy to make, esp now that air fryers are so common.
Honestly though, Five Guys is one of the few fast food restaurants that I think the price warrants what you get. Like yeah it's 22 bucks for Fry's a burger and a shake but man is worth it you get so many fries in the burgers amazing, and the shake isn't that bad either, Not to mention the free peanuts, which I'm sure sucks if you have a peanut allergy but I love peanuts, plus I like that they pay well, I see signs saying starting pay at 24/h which for fast food is pretty good.
There were borderline in the before times. Now, I might as well go to a steakhouse instead. It would be about the same price.
I do have to agree they are competing with actual restaurant prices with their pricing, however they have the fast food/ intermediate zoning on pretty solid lockdown. If I had to choose between going to Five Guys or going to a restaurant ultimately it's going to depend on how fast I wanted the meal. Five guys can have the meal in and out in under 3 minutes where if I went to a restaurant like Applebee's or Outback I'm going to be there 10-15 minutes minimum
Plus with five guys, like I said before infinite peanuts so like I have something to snack on while I'm waiting for my order or I have nothing to occupy my time but Dooms scrolling on my phone if I'm at a sit down restaurant or doing takeout
Plus an unrelated piece, I kind of like being able to see what the progress of my order is before it's done. Like it gives me something to do, hopefully that doesn't bug the actual people cuz it's not like I'm bugging them about it but I find it really interesting to be able to watch your order as it's being made
How the fuck did fast food get this expensive?
FG has always been more expensive. They try to keep things very fresh, they give you pretty large portion sizes.
But last time I went, my kids wanted plain hotdogs no toppings, we ordered 2 fries for the table drinks and one sandwich, ended up in the $70s
$8 for a grilled cheese, I can make 12 grilled cheese for $8. $12 for a hot dog, That's enough to buy a whole pack of buns and dogs.
It's like everything there is set to 10:1
Before Covid, fast food chains had lines out the doors. Restaurants had lines, you needed reservations. It's been forever since I've even seen a place that was busy.
There has to be some form of happy medium where you can still make cheapish food and serve enough quantity to run a business.
Greed.
In n out has the best food and it's still like $5 for a meal
It's why all of the other drive throughs are empty and in n outs drive through line spans three parking lots. Somehow pulling up to in n out as the 40th person in the line I still get through it quicker than if I pull up to an empty McDonald's. I guess the in n out having 20 employees is able to actually make food faster than the McDonald's with maybe two people in it
It's a shame they serve cardboard instead of French fries though.
Disagree on the taste, and hate the wafer-thin patties, but you can't argue with the price. Cheapest fast food in town.
That said, you can make the burgers a little more palatable by asking for a 4x4 with chopped chilies and pickles, and replacing the spread with mustard. Makes it taste closer to a traditional double cheeseburger. But unfortunately the buns still taste like crap, so I have to order it protein style, and either spend a little extra money grabbing my own buns from the grocery store (and thus negating any cost savings), or simply eating the burger without a bun.
And don't even get me started on how bland the fries are. Quite honestly the worst French fries I've ever had. But they're okay if you order them with cheese (or animal style without the spread). TBH, I'm just not much of a fan of fries. I wish they had more choices for side dishes.
But again, you can't beat the price, so I'm willing to sacrifice on taste to save a little money from time to time. But I will never understand why people like the taste so much.
Meanwhile i grabbed potato buns and beef and made myself a bunch of smash burgers that would put five guys to shame. Only cost like $10
It's interesting to hear how prices are so different in other parts of the world.
Where I live, which is considered low cost of living for the USA, $10USD is about what it would cost to buy a pound (roughly 0.5 kg) of the lowest grade hamburger and a pack of generic potato buns at the lowest cost store around. That wouldn't be enough to make a bunch of burgers unless they were slider size and it wouldn't cover the cost of all the other extras (veggies, cheese, condiments) that I'd need to be able to approximate a burger from a place like Five Guys.
Granted, I could do much better for myself for much less than $80 (assuming we're talking about $80USD for a family of 3 - 5). But there are some advantages to not having to do the shopping, the prep work, and the clean-up. I could see doing this every once in a while as a special occasion thing, but then I haven't eaten at Five Guys in over a decade, and I don't know if their food has declined in quality as much as pretty much all the other fast food places.
I bought a pound of beef, the grocery store stuff is good where I live. That cost $6.50 And I got like 8 buns for like $4
The beef was enough for like 6 burgers and I had cheese at home.
$78 would only feed 2 people
Went there around covid time... Got shorted on fries and a 30 dollar bill for two...
Bro this is Burger in fries in freedom-land... Gtfo
the cost of lunch at a fast food place is almost the same as a sit down restaurant. although you will have to tip.
but no standing in line, fewer loud customers, less stress, better food quality and the ability to customize dishes. plus you can actually have a conversation without yelling over everyone else.
the problem with cheep fast food is it is no longer cheep and just fast...ish. but every other aspect has become substandard crap.
Went there once and never went back. I can't enjoy my food knowing it was so expensive for fast food. You can get a steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse instead.
I never visited America. Could you describe in vivid detail to me what is the Texas Roadhouse experience like?
Imagine a slowmo video of a grenade going off. You're walking in to that.
Unless you go at 4 pm when they open, you're in for a bad time. Actually scratch that, you're in for a worse time.
You go early for dinner, expecting to be sat immediately to be greeted by a press of people at the door. No one is happy, everyone is grumpy and in each other's space. You wade through the throng to a hostess stand, which is next to a butcher's counter full of disappointing looking meat. On top of it is clawingly sweet smelling bread. The 16 year old girl asks you how many impatiently, and takes your phone number. They'll text you when your table is ready. As you're trying to ask how long someone else pushes past you to grab a bowl of bread, and ushers a family of 4 morbidly obese people through an opening barely wide enough for the teenager.
Oversized tables are mushed together and you watch them navigate a labyrinth before someone else pushes past you to talk to the hostess. You go stand awkwardly in a corner somewhere.
It's uncomfortable and crowded but it won't be long, you tell yourself.
The minutes drag on, you feel your will to stay drain with each passing second. As you're getting ready to get up to leave your phone buzzes, your table is ready. You push past the throng of people, past someone asking how long it will be at the host stand, to see someone grabbing a bowl of bread for you. You follow the 32 year old teenager through the labyrinth to an oversized table. You actually have to sit on the edge of the booth to reach it, it feels too tall. The bench is over worn, and the guy serving you leaves without a word and returns with waters before asking what you'd like to drink, as if you're interrupting him.
You've looked at the drink menu, and they've taken the effort to rename every overly sweet cocktail to something cheeky, and you have to go by the pictures to know what they are. You decide to stick with water. He hands you menus and disappears.
The menu is overlarge, sticky, and colorful. Nothing looks unique or interesting. It's bog standard steakhouse flare and you remember the steaks in the cooler really not looking all that appetizing. You've had a basket of sweet dinner rolls and are no longer hungry but feel like if you don't get an appetizer you're missing out on the essential TR experience. You order the platter and a cheeseburger.
The food shows up before you finish your water, and it's fine. Nothing is wrong with any of it. You have absolutely no complaints about the food itself, but nothing stands out as particularly unique, or interesting. And you could have gotten all of this somewhere else cheaper, you're sure. Maybe even less of it because the amount of food put in front of you is insulting. It's a lot. The burger is difficult to finish and you have another basket of rolls you haven't touched. 3/4s of what you ordered is still in front of you, you're full, tired, and not really interested in having any of it later.
You pay at the little computer that's sitting on the table that you largely ignored after discovering it wanted to charge you 5 dollars to play an android game. You leave past an even denser crowd of people and vow never to go back
Their buns get soggy.
They also wrap them too tight at times they're like hockey pucks when you take them out of the bag.
It's terrible, but I guess it depends on the area?
Like, our local Steak and Shakes make far better burgers for nothing. Not to speak of real burger joints everywhere.
But if you're... I dunno, in a burger joint desert and Cracker Barrel is the only other choice, and you're rich, maybe Five Guys is not terrible?
I live near Vancouver bc and there are not many decent burger places near me. Not that burgers arent everywhere, but relatively few actual real burger joints. A world record stone throw from just about anywhere nesr me and i could hit a dozen indian or sushi places though
but five guys are always a very satisfying burger when im near one.
I dont consider it fast food, kind of a category above
But FatBurger has dissapointed me so many times that it's easy to understand how easy it is to completely fuck up a burger
Behold the superior hamburger ye mighty and despair:
The absolute GOAT.
When I want any burger, many places will suffice.
When I want a good burger, a decent restaurant or make it at home.
But when I want that In-n-out flavor, nothing will satisfy, absolutely nothing, other than In-N-Out.
And yes I actually like their fries. Fight me lol.
Animal style <3
Yeah but 5 Guys fries are so clearly superior
TIL superior means inconsistent
I don't see a Whataburger.
Whataburger was able to Duke it out with in-n-out, but their decade-long decline, plus they being sellouts to a corner cutting private firm, has made the real Whataburger gone forever, reduced to atoms.
In-n-out is, overall, the superior choice now
Their hotdogs are almost the same price.
There is a five guys in my city. Tried it at two different locations, given its good reputation.
The single worst burger place. That they have any sort of reputation at all for being good is a stain on the fabric on the concept of restaurants.
I think it just varies a lot from location to location. I went to one in Limassol once and it was great.
The one I used to go to by my home made the best burgers in town. The one I went to twice by my office was gross.
I thought it was a one off but the number of people shitting on them in this thread tells me they have a quality control problem. There are good ones but yeah if I paid what they charged for a mediocre burger I wouldn’t go back either.
Same
The one I sometimes go to makes excellent burgers and fill the bag to the top with fries. It's expensive but I don't go there very often (and I hate McDonald's and BKs burgers)
To me 5 guys fries are way the hell too greasy, and I'm not even that picky about my food.
Penn Station Subs is expensive too. Like Five Guys, I won't even consider eating there.
I always thought the fries were the way they are because they're fresh cut in the place and not dehydrated and frozen
Mostly correct. "Dehydrated" isn't the goal of par-frying first but some moisture is driven off. By just barely cooking them through at a lowish heat then freezing you can re-fry them at a much higher temperature to get a crisp exterior and hot, fluffy interior. Higher temp means the rate of water boiling out keeps oil from penetrating as quickly, but if you try that with fresh cuts the outside will burn well before the inside is ready.
For the record, the best fries are done with a seasoned batter before the final cook. Really get thay crispy layer and add a load of whatever flavor you like.
I usually get a double and think it's pretty good, maybe a bit too tall
