THE FIVE GUYS BURGERS       √√√√

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BURGER-MEISTERS!

In our quest to find a real hamburger, we ran into disappointment at every corner.  The bigger the chain it seems the poorer the quality. All over cooked and over-seasoned to make it appear appetizing, the old joke "where's the beef" came to mind.

Zagat has released the results of their 2010 Fast Food survey. They interviewed 6,518 Zagat.com diners who ate at chain outlets an average of 10.7 times per month, totaling 837,000 meals. That's a lot of time in fast food land eating so the results might be skewed toward the better food. it's a fair assessment and virtually identical to the results we got. We had Five Guys in First and McDonalds sat at the bottom.

The rankings for best fast-food burger, with Virginia-based Five Guys edging out west coast-favorite and previous years' winner In-N-Out Burger. We could not test In-N-Out burger since we don't have them in Florida that I know of. 

Five Guys has 644 locations across the US and Canada.   Best Fast-Food Burger: Five Guys, we agree. We took numerous trips to the depths of burger barfing and the best burgers and fries were Five Guys. Simple , good quality, nice portions, good help and busy. Fresh cooked to order right out in the open.  Five out of five times the orders were perfect.  If the checkers in Florida weren't going out of business as fast as they opened I would put them ahead of McDonalds. McDonalds had pricing, but not the quality.


The 2010 Zagat Fast-Food Survey's Best Burgers:  We agreed.

1. Five Guys

2. In-N-Out Burger (Not tested in Florida) 

3. Wendy's

4. Burger King or Checkers

5. McDonald's

History

  • 1986: The first Five Guys location opens in Arlington, VA.
  • 1986 - 2001: Five Guys opens five locations around the DC metro-area and perfected their business of making burgers… and starts to build a cult-like following.
  • 2002: Five Guys decides DC metro-area residents shouldn't be the only ones to experience their burgers and start to franchise in Virginia and Maryland.
  • 2003: Five Guys sells out of franchise territory within 18 months and starts to open the rest of the country for franchise rights.
  • 2003 - Present: Five Guys expands to over 625 locations in over 40 states and 4 Canadian provinces.
THE BOTTOM LINE (Facts)

1- There are over 250,000 possible ways to order a burger at Five Guys.
2- They use only fresh ground beef.
3- There are no freezers in Five Guys locations, just coolers. Nothing is ever frozen.
4- They use only Peanut Oil.
5- Their menu is trans-fat free

BOTTOM LINE:  Slightly more expensive than the cheapies, about a dollar or so per meal, you get real meat, double meat portions are standard, and fries are killer because of the peanut oil, more expensive to cook in but better than transmission fluid. This tastes like a real burger and real fries.

NUMBER ONE: Short menu, no muss, no fuss, the concentration is on the food, not the toys, not the rides and not some clown.  They have a winner.