When you get free toppings at Five Guys, have you ever wondered if they're truly
"free"? What about the quality of the potatoes that go into making their French fries?
Here's why this popular burger chain is so expensive.
Unlike a lot of fast food chains, Five Guys is committed to freshness. This can come at a cost,
though, which is most likely reflected in the price you pay for their burgers.
The company refuses to work with frozen products, so in their kitchens, they only have coolers,
and no freezers. But exclusively using fresh ingredients has a catch: spoilage.
To keep spoiled foods at a minimum, employees may have to prep two to three times a day,
which in turn means more deliveries. Then when you take into account the fact that Five Guys also has
multiple free toppings to choose from — along with their freshly baked bread that's delivered
daily — it just seems logical that these costs would be calculated into the final menu prices.
Five Guys uses only the freshest ingredients, but what about the overall quality?
As you might imagine, the chain only invests in premium ingredients.
Schweid & Sons is the beef purveyor for all of their locations. The specialty blend of
ground chuck and sirloin used for Five Guys burgers isn't available for retail purchase,
which makes it all the more tantalizing. It's comprised of 80 percent lean and 20
percent fat ground beef, which is the ideal lean-to fat ratio according to Schweid & Sons.
Then of course, there are also Five Guys' fresh, never frozen, french fries.
As reported by Food Republic, every year, Five Guys buys more than
5 percent of the annual Idaho potato crop, which is mainly of the Burbank variety.
That amounts to 140 million pounds of potatoes annually. As noted by Capital Press,
around 100 Idahoan potato growers sell to Five Guys. Even the mayonnaise that Five Guys uses
comes from a privately owned brand created by Murrell and the corporate condiment king, Heinz.
Five Guys is known for being rather generous with its portions — especially the fries,
as a small order is certainly enough for two people. And it's not just
the sides that are plentiful; the main attraction also arrives nice and hefty.
According to Five Guys' nutritional information, their standard burger patty hovers just around
3.35 ounces, or 94 grams. In a taste-off between two competing burger chains,
Dallas Observer calculated that In-N-Out's patties weigh in at two ounces. That means a single burger
at Five Guys is almost 50 percent meatier than the competition. It almost seems comparable
when you factor in cost, except that the standard Five Guys hamburger doesn't come with one patty,
but two. That means you're actually getting 6.7 ounces of premium beefy goodness.
"I was just trying to make the Beef Boys proud."
So if the price for a single burger at Five Guys used to make you scratch your head,
now you can see that you get what you pay for.
Whether you love 'em or hate 'em, the burger buns at Five Guys are worth talking about.
According to a post on the chain's Facebook, Five Guys buns contain nine ingredients total:
water, flour, sugar, oil, yeast, eggs, milk, salt, and sesame seeds.
Compared to your standard burger bread, these buns are distinctly sweet and noticeably eggier.
While some locations have a love/hate relationship with the price of the bread,
they have to stick with synchronicity. Because if there's one thing that Five Guys takes seriously,
it's keeping the menu items uniform. So even if the buns are a costly sore point,
franchisees know that the product is premium and that they wouldn't be able to change it anyway.
To keep up with demand, the company contracted 10 professional bakeries around the nation
to produce their fabulous cake-like buns. According to Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell,
the bread is baked on a daily basis and picked up every afternoon at 3:00 pm. The buns are then
shipped out via plane or freight and sent to every Five Guys location so that they
arrive in time for prep early the next morning — even if the nearest eatery is 400 miles away.
That's a lot of buns, and a lot of gas, to account for.
"Look at these big ol' buns."
As reported by PitCo, canola oil and peanut oil, or a blend of both,
are the most commonly used fryer oils in the restaurant industry. That being said,
eateries tend to steer clear of peanut oil because of the price … and not because,
you know … it's a threat to individuals with nut allergies or anything like that.
People with peanut allergies have a reaction to the protein in the
actual nut. Refined peanut oils, like the ones used by Five Guys,
are considered clean, as they undergo multiple processes to eliminate any proteins.
You would think that the significant increase in childhood nut allergies would cause peanut oil
prices to plummet, so why is it the opposite? Peanut oil is one of the most nutrient-dense
oils in the world, and it's high in oleic oils and vitamin E. There's been an ongoing societal
shift towards healthier eating, especially in the fast and fast-casual food industries.
This growing interest has increased demand on peanut oil manufacturers,
who are having trouble keeping up their supply. Ultimately, menu prices are going
to reflect the price of goods needed for the production of menu items, so it would hardly
be a surprise if the cost of peanut oil plays a factor in the pricing of Five Guys' food.
There's no such thing as a "free" topping. They have to be calculated into the cost of
something somewhere. After all, Five Guys has to pay for those add-ons, as they don't just
magically descend from the heavens. The chain offers 17 different toppings that you can add
to your massive burger, and all of them are free, though their menu only specifies 15:
ketchup, mustard, relish, specialty mayonnaise, grilled onions, BBQ sauce, hot sauce,
A1 steak sauce, onions, grilled mushrooms, Mount Hood pickles, fresh lettuce, tomatoes,
jalapeños, and green peppers. But you can also add extra cheese and bacon without extra charge.
It all comes down to this: restaurants want to make money. They can advertise that additions are
"free" because those food costs are minimal for the restaurant. But everything is calculated into
the final price that you pay for your meal. This is done with food cost calculators,
which measure food margin, percentages, and pricing based off of a restaurant's food costs.
In the end, customers are paying for those free toppings, whether they realize it or not.
"Maybe it's time someone paid."
Any company has to spend money to train employees.
It's no different at Five Guys. Since the food is freshly prepped and made to order,
cooks are expected to know what they're doing. To make sure they have what it
takes to operate the grill, employees must acquire those skills through proper training.
Potential fry cooks attend "fry calibration" class before being able to take on the fry station.
Burger builders need to learn the specific way to arrange toppings, or the texture won't be right.
Simply put, no employee is allowed to work a full day without attending Five Guys University. At
this chain, consistency is key, and if something tastes off, then it reflects poorly on the brand.
And not only does Five Guys offer thorough training for its staff,
but full-time employees also qualify for retirement savings and health insurance.
Furthermore, all workers are entitled to a paid meal per shift and 50 percent off
food when they're not on the clock. The company also offers bonuses twice a year,
and they have a Tuition Assistance Program, which includes three different options:
fully funded, partially funded, and personalized coaching that helps guide new students.
If you've ever been to a Five Guys, you know that there's a lot going on visually.
The walls are covered in white and red tiles while the kitchen has an open floor plan with
a shiny steel interior. An open floor plan means that everyone can see inside,
meaning everyone can see everything. Because of this, cleanliness is especially important.
To keep the stress off the cooks, complimentary peanuts are offered to customers. While this is
meant as a kind gesture, it also means that there's more of a mess for employees to clean
up — especially since customers have a tendency to just leave their peanut shells on the floor.
If you factor in the extra sanitation and cleanliness regulations initiated
by the FDA because of the COVID-19 pandemic, that means even more extra
costs. Ultimately, the price of cleaning and sanitization means more money spent.
"We care about our food. We care about our crew. And we care about you."
Jerry Murrell has been very open about Five Guys' pricing. In an interview with Inc., he revealed,
"Our food prices fluctuate. We do not base our price on anything but margins. We raise our
prices to reflect whatever our food costs are. So, if the mayonnaise guy triples his price,
we pay triple for the mayonnaise! And then we'll increase the price of our product."
Basically, depending on where you are in the world, the price you pay for your burger is going
to vary. Take, for example, the 2016 debut of Five Guys in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
While customers were happy with the burgers, they felt that the prices
were shenanigans because they were higher than what Americans were paying. Five Guys defended
the increased prices by citing taxes, the use of premium ingredients, and the cost of labor.
On another occasion, a massive crop of tomatoes was cleaned out by hurricanes in Florida.
Murrell received calls from franchisees who were pulling tomatoes off the menu
because they were too expensive, as the price had jumped from $17.00 a case to $50.00.
Every hamburger comes with two slices of tomato, so Murrell suggested that
until the price decreased, only one slice was necessary. However,
his sons intervened and made sure that franchisees kept two because of the importance of consistency.
We've already established that Five Guys takes pride in its no-freezer policy.
So if something is prepared fresh daily, that indicates that the items in the cold
case are in fact prepared that morning and not the day prior.
Five Guys embraces the fresh-food factor because fresh makes food taste better.
As reported by FoodPrint, it's estimated that restaurants in
the United States generate upwards of 22 to 33 billion pounds of food waste annually.
Most restaurants have a general idea of how many customers they'll serve each day.
This helps determine how much product will be needed, which ultimately leads to consistent
pricing. Such food waste forecasting can be done by using prep calculators.
It's also worth noting that in a study by Unilever, 47 percent of diners said they
would be willing to spend more money to eat at a restaurant that actively tries
to reduce its food waste output. Perhaps Five Guys has taken this sentiment into account.
It's Jerry Murrell's firm belief that the best marketing and advertising comes via word of
mouth — not some billboard on a busy highway or a commercial that airs all over prime-time TV.
Five Guys also doesn't solicit reviews. Instead, they use mystery shoppers as their main form of
advertising. Murrell told Forbes in 2012 that his company collects 1.5 percent from their
franchisees to cover the cost of mystery shoppers that frequent each location twice per week.
According to a person who posted on Quora claiming to be a mystery shopper for multiple businesses,
working for Five Guys was one of their better gigs. As the mystery shopper put it,
"I was particularly pleased to see that corporate watched a number of important details.
They asked that we observe how the fries were cooked, the quality of the finished product and
the cleanliness of the restaurant — among a number of details important for good customer service."
This attention to detail is certainly reflected in the high quality of the Five Guys experience,
but it of course comes at a price.
"The price is wrong."
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