Retro Burgercraft
It’s no fiction, Five Guys satisfies
During the post-holiday season, my neighbor Jenn and I took a work lunch break and headed to Lakewood’s new foodie destination: Five Guys Burgers and Fries.
While other Cleveland locations exist (there’s at least six in the area), the Detroit Avenue Culinary Mile, home to numerous and quite diverse dining options, only recently welcomed this Arlington, Virginia sensation.
Jenn and I found metered parking right in front of the restaurant, a good thing considering the block’s parking lot is behind the building and there’s no backdoor access. Not a big deal in the summer, or for anyone from a high-traffic city, but in the winter, proximity from car door to front door is key.
We walked in and immediately noticed the retro red and white and the long path towards the back of the restaurant, guided by multiple color-coordinated bags and boxes of peanuts and potatoes. Customers can nosh on the peanuts, for free, while waiting for the food to be cooked. We also heard Led Zepplin on the loud speaker, as, we later learned, classic music is the soundtrack of this eatery. Media-bragging signs cover the walls, including WashingtonPost.com proclaiming Five Guys the “Willy Wonkas of Burgercraft.”
Taking everything in, as we approached the counter, the very nice young man in designer glasses taking our order first asked if we’ve been to a Five Guys before, and, as neither of us had, explained the super short menu: Burgers (regular), Burgers (small), Kosher-style hot dogs, fries and drinks (pop and water). To my disappointment, no milkshakes. What would Vincent Vega do? The cashier continued, “The regular burger has two patties, while the small burger has one. I’d recommend each of you order the small. Also, pick any toppings you’d like, they are all free.” Decisions, decisions. Following his recommendation, Jenn and I each ordered a regular cheeseburger, a soft drink and one cup of fries to share.
With Santana serenading us, Jenn and I sat down and, while waiting for the food to arrive, began to observe the place and its customers: Five Guys doesn’t really feel like a diner, nor like that other burger chain with red as its primary color. Five Guys resonates the atmosphere of a place one could stop and eat at on a long cross-country road trip. (That is, before the highway service stops all began to look alike and offer the same contractual chain food “options.”)
Casual bleached wood dining furniture fills up the new space and plenty of seating exists for the rotating crowd: white and blue collar, older, kids with parents and everyone in between. Like characters in a movie, literally anyone could walk into this place, looking for something old or something new, or, just passing through.
One of the servers brought out our order and, though we’d be eating “in,” the food came out in bags and not on trays. Personally, I prefer a little more substance between my food and the table it’s on. Jenn and I eagerly opened our bags and took out our meals. But, before we dug in, I noticed a piece of bacon sticking out of my burger. To quote Jules Winnfield, the Pulp Fiction religiously righteous assassin, played perfectly by Samuel Jackson, “I don’t dig on swine.”
Thus, I quietly took out the pork strips before taking my first bite. The burgers were very juicy and the buns: fresh and soft. But the winner in our lunch ensemble was the French fries. While so many other chains have messed around with the oil on their fries so much that one never knows what to expect when heading into a familiar location, I now vote that all potato, moving forward, be cooked in peanut oil. These are, quite possibly, the best French fries I’ve ever had.
After emptying our soft drinks, and realizing we still had half a serving of these incredible morsels left in the bag, I refilled our beverages at the self-serve fountain and returned to our table, when Jenn and I noticed some of the staff seated in front of black mini-laptops with light reflecting in the readers’ eyes, all focused on company training. What are the laptops saying? What’s inside? We may never know.
On the company website, one of the reviews, from The Virginian-Pilot, headlines “Get a tasty burger at Five Guys Burgers and Fries.” Tasty burger. The only time I’ve ever heard that combination of words was in Pulp Fiction, when Jules, along with partner in crime Vincent Vega (John Travolta), breaks into a college student’s apartment, only to take his lunch, amongst other things, away from him. Between the classic rock music, the road-trip like atmosphere and the very tasty burgers, even righteous Jules would be satisfied at Five Guys. For hours and a location near you, visit http://www.FiveGuys.com.
Alex Sukhoy, a globally-networked creative and business professional with nearly 20 years of corporate management experience, holds a B.A. degree in Communication from DePaul University in Chicago and an M.B.A. in Marketing and Strategy from the University of Rochester, Simon School of Business.
Founder and manager of http://MBAhobo.com, a career consulting firm, and Creative Cadence LLC, a content and business development company, Alex has guest-lectured at numerous local organizations, including CSU and John Carroll’s Boler School of Business, and also teaches screenwriting and preproduction at Tri-C. In 2006, she was profiled in BusinessWeek.com. Since first moving to Cleveland in 2003, she’s made this city her home, and even wrote a song and a screenplay about it.
3 Responses to “Retro Burgercraft at Five Guys”
Ellen
As usual, Alex has captured the ambiance and flavor of this local diner with sheer brilliance.
Ben
Alex, your review captures so much about Five Guys that you probably didn’t even know…. My adulthood can practically be measured in visits to Five Guys. In the ’80s, I started going to what was then the restaurant’s only location, in my native Alexandria, Virginia. The burgers were fatty and not pre-formed like in other restaurants. They took an irregular shape and seemed about to fall apart as soon as you got them. But boy were they meaty, a tiny bit wider in the middle than on the ends, with pronounced flavors of both char and fat. Absolute perfection.
I would have the chef load as much goo on my burger as possible: cheese, grilled onions and mushrooms, A1 sauce, mustard and ketchup. Sometimes lettuce or raw onions too. The buns back then were brought in daily from Brenner’s, a Northern Virginia boulangerie that, sadly, has passed on to bakery Heaven. They were a little on the sweet side, soft and chewy. And no match for a fatty burger carrying ten ounces of drippy condiments…. Halfway through, my bun would be soaked. I would be gripping it through the A1 and the ketchup. And then the burger would fall apart. The restaurant had no forks back then, so I would use my fingers to pick the second half of my topping-soaked burger crumble out of the wrapper. Of course, the fries were drenched in oil. Alex, you are right: spuds and peanut oil is a combo from heaven. Five Guys seemed determined to keep the ratio at one-to-one. By the time the meal was over, I would be up to my elbows in burger grease, peanut oil, A1, and ketchup, with a peanut shell or two stuck to a forearm. I had a basic rule: always wear a t-shirt when visiting Five Guys!
In the ’90s, the original Alexandria location was shuttered, but a branch was opened in Bailey’s Crossroads, just over the town line in Fairfax County. The dining area didn’t look very appetizing, so I got my burgers and fries to go. By the time I had them home, everything was soaked. From the first bite of the burger to the last, my hands were touching condiments the entire time. The fry bag would be tattered by the end of the meal. These were my grad school years, and a value-priced meal of gourmet meat and potatoes was quite the luxury. Back then, I never wore anything but jeans and t-shirts , unless I had an interview, so I was always ready to go to Five Guys. And I did. Often. Messy or not, this was great food.
In the 2000s, a new location opened in Old Town Alexandria, and I would indulge in some nostalgia with my return visits from time to time – especially after an evening out. Nothing cures a hangover like Five Guys. They put some tables outside the new shop, and one day I got myself a burger and a Diet Coke, fired up my laptop, and took a conference call from the restaurant (after washing my hands in the bathroom – I couldn’t have held onto the phone otherwise). The call went well. I went back for seconds. Then I walked around the neighborhood. Old Town has changed a lot since I first started going to Five Guys. New brick townhouses have replaced ramshackle old wood structures with weedy yards. There’s a much more vibrant ethnic restaurant scene. Everybody drives a luxury car. Five Guys itself seems, well, old. This is odd in a town that dates back to Colonial America. But everything else has been “updated.” Five Guys stubbornly clings to its past.
What is most shocking to me is the chain’s success. During all of my visits mentioned above, the restaurant was almost always empty – even though the food was fantastic. I thought I had a special secret. But lately, I think people want something authentic when wading through their choices on the chain-restaurant front. Let me assure you: Five Guys is the real deal! (Compare Johnny Rockets, which is, in my opinion, a mockery of a burger joint.)
I’ve now eaten at two of the Five Guys locations in Ohio, and the burgers are the same as ever, the fries are the same, the free in-the-shell peanuts are the same. Even the toppings are the same. It almost makes me cry to reexperience something this good and this unchanged from decades ago. I think the buns are a little tougher than the original. But short of bringing Mr. Brenner himself back from the afterlife, there’s no way to preserve the perfect burger experience any better than Five Guys has done. If you want to know what the great American burger really tastes like, order a double with at least five toppings, get a side of fries – and wear a t-shirt.
Dave Adams
This frothy and overly-written review about a run-of-the-mill hamburger joint seemed oddly over-the-top compared to this chain’s offerings. (this is a place you could eat at in a long road trip? Is that a compliment or an insult? And what’s up with the Pulp Fiction references? The characters spent more time in that movie extolling the benefits of the “Royale,” a competitor’s offering. Yes, indisputably, the hamburgers are big. And good. So are the fries No quibble there. But you pay a lot of them. One might expect at these prices, that the restaurant would be willing to put just about anything they could find on a hamburger to justify the cost. The menu is painfully small. (Even Johnny Rockers realizes the need to serve a milkshake with a hamburger). Basically, this place is a lot of brick and mortar for overpriced hamburgers, and a sterile atmopshere. Like the reviewer, I wonder how this place thrives, always empty offering so little. Then I remembered the price of the food. Oh yeah, that’s a good margin. I might go back to Five Guys. But probably only if I were on a long road trip…