There's no denying that Five Guys is currently sitting high and mighty on the burger throne
but this doesn't mean that there aren't a few cracks in the foundations. Here are a
few of the biggest scandals to have ever hit Five Guys.
You'd hope that any Five Guys franchise operator would want to do right by their employees,
but sadly that's not always the case. North Carolina Five Guys owner Mike Ruffer pitched
a fit in 2013 when he discovered that, because he employed 147 employees at his eight burger
locations, he'd have to provide them with health insurance under the Affordable Care
Act, called "Obamacare" by some. At the time, Ruffer said:
"There's a part of me that would love to offer health care to my employees."
Ruffer also pointed out that he was losing around $60,000 a year in profits under the
law's employer mandate. Now $60,000 isn't exactly chump change, but a Five Guys owner
who operates just a single store usually makes six figures. Ruffer owned eight. In the end,
Ruffer said he'd be forced to pass on the costs of his employees' healthcare to the
store's customers. It wasn't exactly a good look. Other Five Guys franchise owners, such
as JR Rosenau of Florida, took the new mandate in stride. Where Ruffer halted his plans to
expand because of the Obamacare mandate, Rosenau decided to open more locations. He said:
"You just need to find a way to figure it out."
"Obama out."
Let's not kid anyone, here everyone knows that the only healthy thing you'll find at
Five Guys is the tomato slice and leaf of lettuce on your burger. Inevitably, eating
a full meal at Five Guys will likely break your recommended daily calorie intake.
But pull back the curtain and you'll find some even more worrying things wrong with
Five Guys' beef. For example, the restaurant got an "F" when it came to the level of antibiotics
in their beef and no, that F didn't stand for "fantastic." A report produced by the
Center for Food Safety, Consumer Reports, and other consumer watchdog groups slapped
the F grade on Five Guys and 21 other burger chains for their failure to source any of
their beef from antibiotic-free farms.
Antibiotics are used to prevent disease in livestock, but they've also been criticized
for leading to antibiotic-resistance in humans. Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives
with Consumer Reports, said:
"When antibiotics stop working, diseases become harder to treat, life-saving surgeries riskier
to perform, and a scrape on the knee can even turn deadly."
For what it's worth, the only burger chains that got an "A" grade were Shake Shack and
BurgerFi.
For decades, burgers have been the enemy of the dietician.
"Hamburgers! The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast."
Now, pointing out that Five Guys burgers aren't healthy isn't exactly groundbreaking, but
what is turning some heads is their insistence that they're serving a "better burger."
Along with brands like Shake Shack, Five Guys is credited with creating a so-called "better
burger" that doesn't just beat McDonald's in taste, but also in quality. Unfortunately
for Five Guys, not everybody is buying into this. Jayne Hurley, a registered dietician
at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told HuffPost:
"These new upscale burger restaurants are serving more meat between the buns with at
least twice the calories. You would get a healthier meal at a traditional fast-food
burger place like McDonald's or Burger King."
Both the Big Mac and Whopper have fewer calories and less fat than a cheeseburger from Five
Guys. The Big Mac weighs in at 550 calories and 29 grams of fat and is slightly healthier
than the Whopper's 630 calories and 35 grams of fat. A regular two-patty cheeseburger from
Five Guys has both beat, however, with 840 calories and 55 grams of fat.
In October 2019, Five Guys manager Darnell Penn allegedly sexually harassed and assaulted
a female employee when he lured her to his car under the guise of getting a new uniform.
He was also accused of forcing another employee to expose herself to him, allegedly threatening
to fire her if she told anyone.
After learning that he was facing charges, Penn ditched his Five Guys responsibilities
and went on the lam. Penn was eventually arrested in Georgia and shipped back to Pennsylvania
to face his charges. While Five Guys obviously had nothing to do with the incident, other
than hiring Penn, the ordeal certainly didn't help the image of that particular Pennsylvania
location.
Unfortunately, Five Guys has had more than one terrible manager in their ranks. In 2015,
a newly-opened branch in West Virginia became embroiled in a scandal when two of its female
employees accused the manager of sexual harassment. The two employees filed a lawsuit against
both the general manager and restaurant manager Andre Devon Fleming, accusing Fleming of creating
a hostile work environment when he made unwanted sexual advances towards them.
The lawsuit detailed some pretty sleazy reported behavior on Fleming's part, with the manager
allegedly making unwanted remarks towards his employees. Worse still, at least one of
the employees was still in high school at the time. The two employees went on to say
that Fleming touched them inappropriately, allowed other coworkers to carry on with similar
unwanted behavior, and concocted insulting nicknames for his employees. The lawsuit also
alleged that general manager Curtis Runyon was made aware of such behavior, but failed
to take appropriate action.
Five Guys has also employed more than a few managers who have been arrested for stealing.
In February 2020, a former manager of a Five Guys in State College, Pennsylvania was arrested
for stealing $27,000 in cash deposits from his restaurant. The manager, however, said
that it was all a conspiracy, and that another employee was out to frame him.
In 2019, a manager in Memphis, Tennessee was busted for stealing more than $12,000 after
she took the money from the safe and never deposited it at the bank. Once the store's
owner confronted her about it, she simply didn't show back up for work. Obviously, that
wasn't the end of the matter, and police arrested her shortly thereafter.
But both of those examples are small fries compared to a reported theft by former Five
Guys manager Darcy Lyons, who was found guilty and sentenced to up to five years in prison
for stealing $122,000 from her store. And it wasn't just the company that was affected
by Lyons' theft. Her father was forced to take out a reverse mortgage on his home to
try and help his daughter repay the debt. The store's owner also had to halt plans to
open another location and dip into his children's college funds to make up for the loss.
In 2017, Five Guys found itself with some explaining to do to Uncle Sam when three of
its restaurants in Washington, D.C. were found to owe upwards of $500,000 in unpaid taxes.
Officials reportedly made numerous attempts to collect on the taxes from the three eateries,
but without any luck. The restaurant's owners were reportedly given numerous warnings that
if they didn't comply there could be seizures.You can probably guess what happened next.
"You mess with the bull, you get the horns."
The D.C. tax office ordered that those locations immediately halt business. This cut the city's
six Five Guys restaurants down to just three. At the time, a spokesperson for Five Guys
said:
"We are working with the franchise owner of these three locations to resolve the issue
as quickly as possible."
Eventually, the restaurants were able to resolve their debt to the government, and all three
locations are now back in the burger business.
In 2012, several employees at a Five Guys in San Diego brought a lawsuit against the
company, arguing that the restaurant had violated the state's overtime and meal break laws for
hourly employees. And this wasn't the only time that Five Guys have run into trouble
with labor issues.
In 2017, former employee Jeremy Lusk brought a suit against the company, arguing that it
had denied him both his 30-minute meal breaks and 10-minute breaks, and asked him to
perform job duties while he was off the clock. Lusk argued that, if the restaurant was busy,
his manager would deny him his breaks, and that he would be asked to use his car to run
errands for the store after clocking out. Lusk wasn't employed by Five Guys at the time
he filed the lawsuit, and said that the company dragged its heels in giving him his final
paycheck after he quit.
Jody Finefrock and Julia Francis sued Five Guys because they felt that the company had
paid them less than their male colleagues. Both women worked at company-owned Five Guys
locations in Pennsylvania and said Five Guys was guilty of wage discrimination under the
Equal Pay Act. Finefrock said that, as an assistant general manager, she was making
$5,000 less than the male assistant manager that she trained. When she did finally get
promoted to general manager, she was still being paid $2,000 less than her male counterparts.
The women fought to make their case a class-action lawsuit that would work for all female managers,
and Five Guys pushed back. The chain argued that the lawsuit was without merit, because
the Equal Pay Act only bars employers from discriminating against people working in the
same establishment. In the end, the judge ruled in Francis and Finefrock's favor.
The fries are one of the reasons that people flock to Five Guys, and, even though they
garner praise like the "best french fries in fast food," not all of the attention is
good. In fact, everyone from Time to Food Network has called out the chain on their
fatty fries. Sure, Five Guys claims to only use the finest Idaho potatoes but there's
no denying the high-calorie count that comes with them. A small order has 526 calories
and a larger order has 1,314 calories, 57 grams of fat, and 1,327 milligrams of sodium.
Of course, the company makes no apologies for this. Chad Murrell, son of Five Guys founder
Jerry Murrell, told Food Republic:
"I say load 'em up and make sure they get their money's worth. [Some] people complain
that they get too many fries. I just tell them to make hash browns with the leftovers."
Former Five Guys employee Jordan Botelho sued the burger chain for discrimination and harassment
that took place regarding his HIV diagnosis. Botelho had started working at the restaurant
in 2013, and he was diagnosed with HIV in 2014. He was cleared by his doctor to work,
so long as he wore gloves. But when the restaurant hired a new manager, Botelho said they began
making fun of him and telling others about his HIV status. Eventually, Botelho was fired.
Unsurprisingly, Five Guys soon was slapped with a lawsuit for discrimination under the
Americans with Disabilities Act. Botelho's attorney said:
"The law does not allow employers to treat employees in this manner, and we are confident
a jury will hold Five Guys accountable for their unlawful treatment of Mr. Botelho."
While the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that Five Guys was in the
wrong, it opted not to bring a lawsuit against the burger chain.
In 2017, a blind woman sued Five Guys, claiming that their website was ill-suited to use by
the visually impaired. Like many other chain restaurants, the Five Guys website allows
users to place an order online. For Lucia Marett, though, using the Five Guys website
was next to impossible. Marett's class-action lawsuit claimed that the website was full
of barriers for the blind and that she was unable to make an order because of those barriers.
Five Guys argued that its website was in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act,
and tried to have the lawsuit dismissed. A Manhattan judge didn't buy their case, though,
and shot down the dismissal request. The burger company has reportedly been working to overhaul
its website to address and remove barriers that would prevent blind customers from using
it.
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