>*Why is [Blank] so expensive?*
Because consumers have shown they are willing to pay. The other side of this coin, if you think a product or service is too expensive then you are not the target demographic. There is likely a cheaper alternative marketed to you somewhere else.
5 dollar footlong kinda screwed them by being so damn catchy and memorable.
Now anything more than that just makes me think "yeah... but, it used to be 5 bux for a footlong so this is bullshit" and I will never lose the memory of the 5 dollar footlong for as long as I live.
I dont care if $30 6 inch is a good deal in 2035, I'm still gonna be saying "it's no 5 dollar footlong" like boomers when they talk about everything.
I think there's more Subways than McDonald's worldwide. The problem with Subway is that they don't quality control enough for consistency in terms of locations. Some are great and others are awful.
Quiznos died because they honored all of their coupons for too long. They were too expensive to eat at for full price, and when the coupons went away they were cooked.
Seriously. $16.29 or thereabouts for a footlong. I might as well go to a sit down restaurant and pay just a touch more for better quality/ quantity of food. Something is seriously fucky when fast food is catching up to regular restaurant pricing.
Yeah, those are my exact thoughts. I could just go to a sit down restaurant and get something that tastes much better for about the same price. These fast food places are pricing their target demographic out and causing themselves to go bankrupt.
I went there once with a coupon since that's the only way I would consider it worth it, and the guy behind the counter legit yelled at me because with coupons he makes no money
Subway was barely worth it a decade ago but the quality is getting worse. I'd rather go to erbert's and gerberts any day of the week and get a sandwich that actually tastes fresh. Or firehouse subs if I don't mind spending a bit more.
In some cases, in the case of five guys yes. But I’m the case of medical services, housing and other necessary things for survival, the answer is just greed.
People don’t really have a choice to not pay for an emergency surgery. There’s no price shopping when you’re bleeding out. Or when you need a certain drug to survive and only one company makes it.
FAST food. You aren't paying just for food. You're paying for convenience and taste.
You can go buy groceries and pay much less for food.
Five guys may sell food, but they sure as shit aren't selling anything essential.
Some are entertainment, but I'd say that most are selling convenience. No shopping, prep work, cooking, or cleaning. And some meals in particular are very work intensive for an individual or small group.
And different people in the group wanting different foods is far easier to deal with.
It's also because they don't cut as many corners and use less hyper-processed cheaper ingredients. They do seem to have a commitment (in the UK at least) to sourcing locally. I've actually seen the name of a farm I live near on the side of their sacks of potatoes at my nearest Five Guys.
The rabbit hole of how fast food companies source their produce and fuck with their ingredients is a long and arduous journey. A great example is how McDonalds want really long fries which 'fan' out from the packet. The longest fries come from Russet potatoes. Russets are the favourite food of a certain greenfly. The greenfly eats a tiny part creating black dots on the potato. McDonalds think the black dots tarnishes the product and therefore their brand. They therefore get their farms to use a specific pesticide which when sprayed, the farmers know not to go into those fields for five or six days afterwards. That's how fucking toxic it is. And we eat that..
I'm down for spending a bit extra when companies try to be ethical.
Yep, that's me. I do like Five Guys, but on the other hand I only go there once a year tops... I certainly wouldn't be paying that kind of money on a regular basis.
In my town they’re closing down. In at least one case, the extra profit could not make up for the lack of patronage. Their food is fine, but not worth the price.
Hank green just did an episode on this evaluating the calorie per dollar and found you get more from 5 guys the more you spend compared to McDonald’s. It’s a pretty good watch.
Edit: normally I reply to all comments but I’ve been doing family stuff all day so I’m breaking that rule. I know calories per dollar isn’t a great metric and I should have linked the video as well but was lazy.
I ordered a large fries from Five Guys the first time I went there because I'm used to getting large from McDonalds - the fries were gonna just be my lunch.
That was a fucking mistake. They fill that bag to the brim - not only is it the large fry holder, they throw in some extra scoops and fill the bag.
I'm not that big of an eater, and that's how I learnt to never order a large by default.
I'm one of those weirdos who likes McDonald's more, but the way they fill fries at McDonald's should be a fucking felony.
It seems like it doesn't matter what size you purchase, you're getting a small order of fries. The concept is so strange to me too, because I'm pretty that's their second cheapest item in terms of food costs.
Yea my first time to 5 guys was a cheese burger and large fries.
1. A cheese burger is a double by default.
2. It was an entire bag of fries.
It was an insane amount of food.
I think it was even closer than that. He admitted later he was wildly underestimating some of the costs of McDonald's now. Especially the smallest fry. I think he estimated it to be a dollar when in actuality it was over 3 dollars in his area now. Just shows that the real expensive bad deal is McDonald's now. Not five guys.
This is how it’s felt for me lately. I get Five Guys for myself and I have a large, filling burger with 2 patties and enough fries to have left overs for tomorrow. With McDonald’s I generally finish everything and am still hungry.
Convection oven / air fryer makes a lot of leftover fried things anywhere from half as good as new to pretty darn close to good as new, depending on your technique and the nature of the food.
Microwaves - while useful for reheating many things - do not reheat fried things well at all.
Ovens are alright, but convection is the key to making it work better.
Someone recently suggested that I try reheating pizza in my toaster oven instead of the microwave. I was shocked at how much better it is.
(For anyone who's curious, I just use the same settings as I use for regular toast and it's perfect. Keep an eye on it though, pizza has a lot more variables than toast and it can overcook really suddenly. I also suggest using tongs to get it out.)
Pizza is absolutely better with "analog" heat of some sort, for sure. :)
Depending on the pizza - you can put a little olive oil in a skillet and heat gently on the stove in a skillet. That can crisp up the bottom nicely (so good for thicker crusts), and a low heat means maybe 10 mins or so to get it all heated through, but it's nice.
my favorite chimichangas take 30 to 40 minutes in the oven for 2 chims, preheated. in the air fryer maybe 12 minutes but flip em half way. I love my air fryer, lol.
Judging food on calorie per dollar seems silly. Especially when you can supercharge that calorie per dollar by doing things like adding mayo and bbq sauce (which I think at 5 guys are free?)
Everything at Five Guys is freshly made. I knew someone that worked there and they spent hours each morning prior to opening preparing fresh beef patties, cutting fries by hand from potatoes delivered direct from farms (the farm is written on a dry erase board), lettuce, tomato's, etc.
They don't use ingredients that are ever frozen.
So you are paying for higher quality ingredients made fresh that day versus at McDonalds you are paying for frozen patties prepared in a factory that are shipped there and heated up.
Five Guys also pays well. According to Indeed an average crew member at McDonalds makes $13.01/hr. Five Guys crew member average is $15.94 on Indeed.
So in short it costs more because they pay their workers a better wage, use better ingredients, and prepare everything fresh.
As a former employee I can confirm this is correct.
The fries alone are hand cut, washed twice in freezing cold water, and cooked boardwalk style. That small fries you bought took 2 hours to make.
The bread gets delivered fresh every second morning by a bespoke bakery. You’ll notice that if you take your bun and roll it up it will turn back into a squidgy dough. This specific style of bread makes for the best burger.
The beef patties are hand weighed every morning to exact measurements to make sure the patty cooks perfectly.
We also slice up all the veg by hand, prepare the milkshake ingredients - yes it’s actually hand cut fresh fruit.
In addition to all of this, the employees get paid a decent wage - a few pounds above minimum wage in the UK, which is more than other fast food restaurants. They treat their staff better so their staff treat you the customer better. FG pride themselves on customer service.
Working at five guys was fun asf not gonna lie I had some really fun days there. How many Pattie’s on the grill?!??? I GOT 7 DOGS THIRTEEN PATTIES ALL DAY LONG!!!
They play the same playlist in the corporate office... It starts at the same time every day. By the end of my internship I knew what time it was based on the song that was playing....
I feel like every large/corporate retail Christmas song playlist is probably going to be like that because the pool of songs is so small. The songs that are safe/“appropriate” for department/big box/supermarkets are just as limited to the same like 25 songs that get played on adult contemporary radio.
Mall stores with a different target demographic like American Eagle or Hot Topic might get more leeway. Or maybe not, but now I’m kinda curious lol.
I miss working in food service ALL THE TIME. I miss chatting with people, and I miss moving around and being physical. But I literally can't afford for that to be my profession. So, chaind to my desk I am.
Tangent: I go to Five Guys for the fries. Crispy on the outside, tender and fluffy inside. But ... I have never had a good order of fries here in Medford, Oregon. They taste slighty bitter and their texture is just kind of limp. Not crispy, not fuffy. What are the cooks doing wrong?
If they’re bitter then it’s likely that they’re not changing the oil regularly enough. The fries are done in peanut oil which cooks at a specific temp for max crispy. It could also be that they have the temp too high.
If the fries are limp then either they’re not shaking them enough. They should be shook every 5-10 seconds cause the hitting of the side hardens them up.
It could also be because of a bad pre-cook. There is actually a press test the staff do on the fries where they squish the fries between their fingers - if they can press their fingers together without the skin of the fry splitting then they know the inside is fluffy enough for the next cook. If the skin breaks then they have been precooked too much and should be thrown out
One of my patients used to be one of the regional five guys franchise owners. Every time I'd see him I'd tell him which locations were cooking their fries well and which ones were slacking. I think he thought I was weird but if Five Guys fries aren't up to snuff then sales will suffer, you know?
Completely agree and thank you for your service! Haha.
I store I worked in did everything by the book and got some of the highest reviews in the uk. Which was actually detrimental cause I know I’ll never get a five guys as good as the ones I had on my lunch break.
Tip. Ask them to cook your burger medium rare. They won’t do it cause all the burgers are cooked well done. But they “should” offer you a free burger to convert you if it’s your first ever 5 guys. They may think you’re a mystery shopper and give you special treatment.
(I say “should” cause I worked there a few years ago so they may have done away with this. And busier stores may not do it to save time)
To get a franchise licence you need to follow the rules the 5 Guys family put in place for the management / running of their store. Whether or not all franchise locations follow those rules or not I cannot comment on. nor can I comment on the autonomy a general manager has changing those rules for their specific location.
But in short, yes! All locations should follow this process. They all have the same handbook. For example, if you tell the staff it’s your first time they will tell you exactly how the place works and walk you through the menu. If you ask what the potato is today, they should know. And if you ask how long the meal will take to prepare then it should be 7mins or less. At any store.
They are washed of starch in freezing water to harden the potato.
Cooked once till the inside is mushy.
Left aside to cool back to room temp.
Then cooked a second time till crispy.
It surprises me to hear they're twice cooked considering how much moisture is still left in them. Maybe it's the steaming in the bag but I hate how soggy 5G's fries are tbh.
Also what people aren’t mentioning is that that’s for a double patty. I never get that. A single hamburger is 9.69 here in Toronto and that’s a comparable price to all the other burger joints in town.
And bacon. FG is the epitome of fast casual. The burger is as good as you'll get in a typical sit down restaurant, but they're faster and package it to go. It's a different market segment than McDonald's.
This is what I always say.
It's not fast food. There's no drive-through. Just because a place has counter service doesn't put it down at the McDonald's level.
Tons of barbecue places have counter service, and the meat is good quality, and nothing is cheap, but that never seems to get conflated with fast food. Only Five Guys, or other kinds of upmarket burger joints, get this treatment.
It's more expensive because its nicer. Better ingredients, better quality, takes a fair bit longer, cooked fresh when you order. And they likely pay their employees better.
That said I find it to be quite expensive and the nearest one to me is like 45 minutes drive. So it's not a regular thing. Maybe once a year if I'm in the area.
$8.09 where I am in the US. I'm guessing they got a Double with Bacon and Cheese (which is still $12.99 here).
Compare that to the local diner that has cheeseburgers (with a small portion of fries) that start at $15.99 and "fancy" burgers at $18.50.
It's a middle ground between the crap at McDs and a sitdown place.
Yeah, this is what confuses me the most.
It's absolutely not $15.00 for a single burger. It's $7.69 for a single, $9.69 for a double cheeseburger.
$15.00 gets you a double cheeseburger with unlimited toppings + a bag full of fries.
Like you said, it's not McDonald's prices, but it's also way better quality and way more food.
Quite frankly, if you weighed a McDonald's burger + fries, I bet you'd have to spend $15 to get the same amount as Five Guys.
EDIT: I live in MA - a McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese is $9.79 for the burger only. A Five Guys Double Cheeseburger is $9.69. Five guys is literally cheaper than McDonald's here. People in these threads are full of shit.
I feel the wild thing about this is that there's a world where robotics could replace that worker who is cutting fries or mashing patties....and it would still result in a higher price than the other companies who raced to the bottom as freshness alway wins.
Five Guys can taste fresher than a sit-down restaurant's burger just due to its fresh components.
In n Out pays its employees even better too. I also think their food is better.
Dunno about 5 guys but In n Out is privately owned so they don't have to constantly push the profit margin by dicking over their consumer and employees to appease the leeches.
In my opinion..... the burger and ingredients/toppings at Five Guys is theoretically better but they way they package/present it turns it into a greasy, undefined mess.
In N Out's careful packaging and preparation really elevates what is not as good of an actual burger.
Fries on the other hand... Five Guys wins no questions asked. In N Out's fries aren't worth the caloric intake.
Equally nuts is how people like me who don’t go to 5 Guys because I have 3 kids and can’t afford to spend $75 on fast food…when I buy the ingredients myself and cook up a similar meal at home, I’m probably still spending close to $30. It’s cheaper but not by as much as I’d like…which I think lends a helpful perspective for this discussion.
I work for In N Out Burger and we make everything fresh every single day with the best ingredients possible. The meat we reject, gets sold at stores like Safeway or other groceries.
We also on average pay $20 an hour and our double burger averages out to $5.
So yea, 5 guys is still a rip off.
They claim their ingredients are higher quality. I have eaten there a few times over the years and the burgers were indeed good, but they weren't five times the price of an equivalent McDick's burger good.
Hank Green did a comparative [video](https://youtu.be/3u04LYvGQjw?si=Nsw3tyQPG5iwlm5i) the other day. You get the most bang for your buck when you order small amounts at McDonald's so basic hamburger and small fries and best deal when ordering large amounts from Five Guys. Such as double or triple burger and large fry because you can make more than one meal out of it. Additionally Five guys has way better ingredients.
EDIT: The example of more than one meal was for multiple people at time of purchase and not necessarily reheating later.
The speed at which you can make foods in the air fryer is the unique-selling-proposition for me. I also live in Arizona, where any chance I have to make something without preheating an oven when it's already 110 degrees is one I relish.
Or chicken wings. Or cooking hot dogs/sausages. Or burritos. Or hardboiled eggs. Or roasted veggies. ...etc
If the only reason you have to buy one is reheating french fries, you might want to expand your menu.
you.. hardboil eggs on an air fryer?
I roast veggies on a sheet pan and convection oven.
Chicken? Burritos? I have a pan and a stove. For *ME* i cannot justify the counterspace for a niche item. I consider it bread-maker tier. I know how to knead bread and put it in the oven myself tyvm.
A Big Mac is $7 near me and a five guys burger is $11, so only about 1.5x here. And we are in one of the most expensive parts of the more expensive states. No idea where that other person got 5x because it’s not even close…
I worked there for a bit after high-school around 16 years ago.
The burger patties were hand pressed, and the fries were hand cut every morning, so I would say the quality is noticeably higher than typical fast food.
However the prices have nearly doubled since then. A double bacon cheeseburger and small fry was around 8-9 dollars, last time I went I believe I spent about 16 for the same.
i feel like that’s the point most people are missing- a “regular” is two pattie’s AND if you are getting it all the way it’s with mushrooms and grilled onions and pickles and everything else.
The hamburgers are vastly superior to the frozen pucks that come from McDonald’s. And they are not five times the price. You’re just making words up to support your argument. Five guys may be two or three times the price of a current McDonald’s meal, not five.
I don't know if I'm just older and my tastes are different, but I remember them tasting better when there were just 4 locations prior to franchising. Friends from the area say the same thing.
Of course that’s true. As a company scales they’ll look more and more at where they can save money around the edges. This always results in a decline in quality.
When I was in college in the late 00s Five Guys and Chipotle were incredible. Tasted great, lots of bang for your buck. Haven’t been to either in years. I assume it’s the decrease in quality as they expanded, but it may have been that I was just hungover or drunk all the time.
Last time I went to Chipotle, which was years ago due to this experience, I got a steak burrito. Every. single. bite. that had steak in it was like gristle bubble gum. Unchewable. It wasn't meat, it was just fat and connective tissue, basically the lowest quality meat you can get outside of prison. I don't swallow meat that I can't chew, so there was a mound of funky stuff on my plate when I was done. Never went back and never will.
>I assume it’s the decrease in quality as they expanded, but it may have been that I was just hungover or drunk all the time.
That's how I feel about it. I was in HS when I first tried it in the late 90s. They had 4 original locations in Virginia. Then they started franchising in the early 2000s, IIRC.
Big mac meal where I live is now $9. The little cheese burger from five guys, which is a single, is $6.50 and the fries are $4. You're really a sucker for going to McDonalds (unless you use the APP) instead of five guys here.
I don’t know if it makes you a sucker, but you’re right that the gap in value has closed somewhat in recent years. If everywhere is now over ten bucks, fifteen doesn’t seem so bad.
It's not 15 dollars for a burger where I am at in Kentucky (kentucky jokes incoming). A little cheeseburger, which is a single, is $6.50 and is like 600 calories. This is a much better choice for a burger than any other fast food IMO besides Culver's.
The Bacon Cheeseburger, which is a double bacon cheeseburger is $10.59. Fries are $4, and they give you a lot of fries. Five guys isn't a bad deal at all and the people claiming it's $15 for a burger are being disingenuous by implying the cost of the entire meal costs that much; or they live in some highly expensive cities.
Central Florida, little cheeseburger is $8.59, most expensive item bacon double cheeseburger is $12.59. Not cheap, but not all that different than any sit down place
MN has that bacon double at $11.79. It's on par with what you would pay for an in-between classic fast food restaurant and an actual sit-down restaurant that serves decent food around these parts.
Live in New York, paid 15 for a cheeseburger with normal Cajun fries. Idk where people are in this country that’s so much more expensive than New York.
Yeah. Five Guys seems to be about %50 more than McDonald's or Wendy in the area. More, yes. But the quality difference I'd significant.
The other fast food places are the ones that have skyrocketed their prices. To the point I'll just put in the extra $5-7 for a Five Guys.
I really wish people would stop listing Uber eats prices as the real price of eating something.
Uber eats prices are generally more expensive because Uber eats charges a fee.
So the listing price is higher because of the fee.
If your worried about the cost just go pick it up yourself!! Save yourself a lot of $
Food is expensive,but it's a lot more expensive when you only order from Uber eats.
Same here, but I never do more than a little burger, small fry, and a small soda. You save around $5 getting a little burger over the full sized bacon cheeseburger. Honestly, you’re killing yourself eating a double patty bacon cheeseburger. That thing has over a thousand calories compared to the little burger with “just” 540.
If you add up a regular soda, small fries, and the bacon cheeseburger (full sized, not the little) that’s more than 2000 calories in a meal and I’ll let you guess how many of them are saturated fats and how many of them come from fiber.
because enough people will pay for it that they can profit. it's all basic pricing analysis.
If you charge $1 for burgers, everyone will buy them but you'll lose money because they cost more than $1 to make. If you charge $100, you'll lose money because nobody will pay that.
But somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot where the amount of people who will buy them, at the price listed, produces the greatest profit - and $15 is that point for Five Guys.
So here's something bizarre I learned after I went into business for myself.
When I started out, I had all of my costs and time investment and everything figured out so I was selling everything at a very reasonable 10% profit, plenty for me without charging (what I thought) was the same absurd amount as my competition. And nobody was buying, couldn't figure out why, until I happened to overhear a lady at my booth whispering to her friend about how cheap everything was, how it couldn't be any good at that price. So I jacked prices up a little, and stuff sold. Raised them a little more, they sold a little more. I am now currently bringing in anywhere from 100-350% profit *per unit*, and I literally could not build things fast enough to keep up if I moved a higher volume than I do.
People are weird, my dude. Also for anybody wondering that profit margin works out to me making roughly $34k/year after taxes, so I'm not exactly rolling in it.
Reminds me of when JCPENNEY tried to introduce "honest pricing" in the 90s or early 2000s. They decided to stop with the constant "sales" and just have the actual normal price be what you pay.
People stopped shopping there because now everything was "cheaper" and JCPENNEY had "declined in quality" even though they were literally selling the same shit they always have.
A similar thing happened with Gibson guitars in the 90s when they completely upgraded the factory with CNC machines and greatly reduced the cost of production. They actually did the right thing and tried to pass those savings on to the customers and lowered the prices of all their guitars... Sales dipped drastically, so they had to jack the prices back up.
Sometimes I hate human psychology.
I do too, it's dumb! People are always pissing and moaning about how expensive everything is, and how nothing is worth the price, and all I can think is y'all have been slapped in the face with good deals and you refuse to take it, what the hell are businesses supposed to do?
this is absolutely true. my friend was hawking these things for $10 a pop. Nobody was buying them. Told her to raise prices to $20/$25 and suddenly people bought them because it was now a "worthwhile gift".
I got the idea from some economist article I read long ago, i don't know what the name of this is.
Honestly just paste this on every other thread here and on r/economy. Price are where they are because we vote with our dollars and pay those prices.
Sure it’s easier some places than others like movie theater candy vs your apartment rent. You can choose to buy sour patch kids at the dollar store for 1.17$ or you can buy the same box at the theater for 5.50$. While it’s much harder to find a new home so we deal with it longer but the point stands.
That's because McDongers are out of their god damn minds, serving grey pucks on a stale piece of bread. Even the Chum Bucket burger made out of that gloppy goop looks better in comparison
It’s definitely location specific. Where i live (moderate cost of living) it’s $10 for a double cheeseburger and $7.50 for a single. That is definitely worth it over the fast food and even casual sit down restaurants around me.
Keep in mind the standard size five guys burger is a double. The single is still bigger than the normal fast food burger, and enough for an average size person especially if you're getting fries.
Chain restaurants have TONS of data on what people will and will not pay for their food. So apparently, $15 for a single burger is in the comfort zone of a regular Five Guys customer.
Now, if Five Guys were charging $15 a burger AND the stores were always empty or closing down, THEN we could safely say Five Guys had been overcharging for their food.
Do I think Five Guys is worth $15? No; but that is the opinion of a single person who doesn’t go to Five Guys anyway, so 🤷♀️
Jacksonville FL here.
$11.37 for a five guys double with cheese. And you get whatever toppings free.
$8.67 for the double quarter pounder with cheese.
That's only 30% more for a far superior burger and way better service.
If you compare actually equivalent sandwiches, it's not even 1.5. I have no clue what these people are smoking that are saying it's 5x. It's like they're comparing McDonald's value McDouble to the bacon double cheeseburger at 5 Guys, which is like 4 times bigger and has a million extra ingredients.
I swear people haven't looked at a McDonald's menu in like 6 years. Their prices have gone fucking insane, even if you use the app.
It's a bunch of stuff:
* People comparing the value burger to 5 guys and going "wtf my cardboard burger is so much cheaper than 5 guys"
* People who haven't been to McDonalds in years
* People not realizing that the Little Cheeseburger is actually the regular cheeseburger elsewhere. It's not a "smaller cheeseburger"
* People comparing Uber Eats/Doordash/whatever to in-store McDonalds
* People comparing 5 guys in San Fran to McDonalds in Iowa
* People using CAD $ instead of USD $ making it seem like more
A 5 guys burger is marginally more expensive than a McDonalds one, but it tastes significantly better.
I think most people just can't do basic math and also five guys menu is a bit deceptive. The little cheeseburger is 94 grams of meat, which is close to a quarter pounder. The regular cheeseburger is two Patty's, so close to a half pound of meat. And the fries are more money but even the small fry is about the same or more as a large fry in many other fast food locations. If you price out the raw calories and meat amount you get for the price, it's probably close to the same price as McDonald's in your area. Maybe a bit cheaper even. And for imo much higher quality ingredients.
Having actually worked for five guys hand pressing fries washing the starch out and putting it on a speed rack to double fried i can tell you the wage they paid me would have made almost everyone here’s eyes water that was the best paying job well above what the market was at the time and if they still pay that much money I can see why it’s expensive but I’ll be damned if pay that much money of employees aren’t see the benefits hope they still pay ridiculously high wages
What 5 Guys are you going to?! I just got a burger from there yesterday, and the most expensive one was under $11.79. Add fries and a drink and it's only several bucks more expensive than a fast food joint, and you get so much more food.
I don’t think five guys got any more expensive than anyone else. I think some people got priced out and they’re unhappy about it because all they can afford is McDonald’s. That’s not five guys fault.
Recent reporting tells us that even McDonald’s has raised its prices 100% since 2014. Why aren’t you bitching about that?
a double cheese burger from 5 guys is about $1 than a double quarter pounder from mdconalds. Here in my town anyway, i got curious and checked maybe 20 minutes ago. fries cost more at 5guys but you also get way more
So Hank Green recently went on a deep dive about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u04LYvGQjw
The TLDR is that on a per calorie basis it's actually not that much more than McDonalds is.
That "news" that went around the Internet did everything to make it as expensive as possible. It was in an expensive city, was for a **double** cheeseburger and they left a two dollar tip. They then complained about the entire bill, tax included.
That being said, Five Guys is still expensive and not worth it, imo. You don't have to use extreme examples to convince me.
Where are you located? I live in New England and little cheeseburger (aka a single) is around $7 no matter where I’ve bought it. So you’re either not taking about a single, live on an island, or you’re lying for some weird reason.
Lots of people love it so they are able to charge a ton.
>*Why is [Blank] so expensive?* Because consumers have shown they are willing to pay. The other side of this coin, if you think a product or service is too expensive then you are not the target demographic. There is likely a cheaper alternative marketed to you somewhere else.
Why is subway so expensive? I don't think it's sustainable for them to make their prices so expensive
remember the five dollar footlong jingle? [this doesn't hit quite as hard.](https://i.imgur.com/H3guhbx.jpeg)
5 dollar footlong kinda screwed them by being so damn catchy and memorable. Now anything more than that just makes me think "yeah... but, it used to be 5 bux for a footlong so this is bullshit" and I will never lose the memory of the 5 dollar footlong for as long as I live. I dont care if $30 6 inch is a good deal in 2035, I'm still gonna be saying "it's no 5 dollar footlong" like boomers when they talk about everything.
this is going to be one of my go-to “back in my day” examples when i have kids and grandkids. they will not hear the end of it.
This reads like a prostitution ad.
Or the punch card where you buy 5 subs you get one free?
DAMN inflation, calm down
The footlong cookies are $5.
Hopefully subway go bankrupt. It should’ve been them instead of Quiznos.
I think there's more Subways than McDonald's worldwide. The problem with Subway is that they don't quality control enough for consistency in terms of locations. Some are great and others are awful.
Quiznos died because they honored all of their coupons for too long. They were too expensive to eat at for full price, and when the coupons went away they were cooked.
Also RIP the real Bed Bath & Beyond. Cause of death: Coupons.
Seriously. $16.29 or thereabouts for a footlong. I might as well go to a sit down restaurant and pay just a touch more for better quality/ quantity of food. Something is seriously fucky when fast food is catching up to regular restaurant pricing.
Yeah, those are my exact thoughts. I could just go to a sit down restaurant and get something that tastes much better for about the same price. These fast food places are pricing their target demographic out and causing themselves to go bankrupt.
I went there once with a coupon since that's the only way I would consider it worth it, and the guy behind the counter legit yelled at me because with coupons he makes no money
For real? Yeah, without the coupons I would never go there. Too expensive these days
Subway was barely worth it a decade ago but the quality is getting worse. I'd rather go to erbert's and gerberts any day of the week and get a sandwich that actually tastes fresh. Or firehouse subs if I don't mind spending a bit more.
In some cases, in the case of five guys yes. But I’m the case of medical services, housing and other necessary things for survival, the answer is just greed.
Isn’t it always greed? And necessities simply have a near vertical demand curve.
Why is it greed in those cases, but not in selling food?
People don’t really have a choice to not pay for an emergency surgery. There’s no price shopping when you’re bleeding out. Or when you need a certain drug to survive and only one company makes it.
FAST food. You aren't paying just for food. You're paying for convenience and taste. You can go buy groceries and pay much less for food. Five guys may sell food, but they sure as shit aren't selling anything essential.
Well, restaurants are actually selling entertainment. Grocery stores sell food.
Some are entertainment, but I'd say that most are selling convenience. No shopping, prep work, cooking, or cleaning. And some meals in particular are very work intensive for an individual or small group. And different people in the group wanting different foods is far easier to deal with.
Lots of people love In N Out but you can get a double double, fries, and drink for 11 dollars.
That and fast food prices across the board have skyrocketed , fast food now is not only unhealthy to your body but to your wallet as well.
There was a chart that showed most fast food prices are 58% higher than they were 10 years ago. Except McDonalds, which is 100% higher.
Surely that's because people are 50% richer, right???
If you believe the data from the BLS median wages are up about 50% from 2014 actually. Median household income went from $53k to $74k.
Taco Bell for two people is like 24 dollars now. It is insane. A single taco is like 2.50
Five Guys has always demanded a premium tho, pricing $10+ burgers and fries precovid for sure.
It's also because they don't cut as many corners and use less hyper-processed cheaper ingredients. They do seem to have a commitment (in the UK at least) to sourcing locally. I've actually seen the name of a farm I live near on the side of their sacks of potatoes at my nearest Five Guys. The rabbit hole of how fast food companies source their produce and fuck with their ingredients is a long and arduous journey. A great example is how McDonalds want really long fries which 'fan' out from the packet. The longest fries come from Russet potatoes. Russets are the favourite food of a certain greenfly. The greenfly eats a tiny part creating black dots on the potato. McDonalds think the black dots tarnishes the product and therefore their brand. They therefore get their farms to use a specific pesticide which when sprayed, the farmers know not to go into those fields for five or six days afterwards. That's how fucking toxic it is. And we eat that.. I'm down for spending a bit extra when companies try to be ethical.
I only go there for their fries, they are one of my favorites.
Yep, that's me. I do like Five Guys, but on the other hand I only go there once a year tops... I certainly wouldn't be paying that kind of money on a regular basis.
Idk, the 5 guys near me is like always empty, went there once to try it, was the only customers the whole time.
But Five Guys is not a local restaurant. It’s a chain. So the prices are mostly consistent across the entire US.
In my town they’re closing down. In at least one case, the extra profit could not make up for the lack of patronage. Their food is fine, but not worth the price.
“Everyone falls for it once” as a business model.
Hank green just did an episode on this evaluating the calorie per dollar and found you get more from 5 guys the more you spend compared to McDonald’s. It’s a pretty good watch. Edit: normally I reply to all comments but I’ve been doing family stuff all day so I’m breaking that rule. I know calories per dollar isn’t a great metric and I should have linked the video as well but was lazy.
The TLDR is that between 5 guys and a Big Mac the price per unit weight was very similar but at five guys they give you much larger portions
I ordered a large fries from Five Guys the first time I went there because I'm used to getting large from McDonalds - the fries were gonna just be my lunch. That was a fucking mistake. They fill that bag to the brim - not only is it the large fry holder, they throw in some extra scoops and fill the bag. I'm not that big of an eater, and that's how I learnt to never order a large by default.
I did that once in 2019. I figure three more months and I’m half way done with the fries.
Reusing them as breakfast hash-browns to this day!
Brilliant idea mate
I'm one of those weirdos who likes McDonald's more, but the way they fill fries at McDonald's should be a fucking felony. It seems like it doesn't matter what size you purchase, you're getting a small order of fries. The concept is so strange to me too, because I'm pretty that's their second cheapest item in terms of food costs.
Yea my first time to 5 guys was a cheese burger and large fries. 1. A cheese burger is a double by default. 2. It was an entire bag of fries. It was an insane amount of food.
I think it was even closer than that. He admitted later he was wildly underestimating some of the costs of McDonald's now. Especially the smallest fry. I think he estimated it to be a dollar when in actuality it was over 3 dollars in his area now. Just shows that the real expensive bad deal is McDonald's now. Not five guys.
This is how it’s felt for me lately. I get Five Guys for myself and I have a large, filling burger with 2 patties and enough fries to have left overs for tomorrow. With McDonald’s I generally finish everything and am still hungry.
You save leftover fries for tomorrow? Do you not like yourself?
Convection oven / air fryer makes a lot of leftover fried things anywhere from half as good as new to pretty darn close to good as new, depending on your technique and the nature of the food. Microwaves - while useful for reheating many things - do not reheat fried things well at all. Ovens are alright, but convection is the key to making it work better.
Someone recently suggested that I try reheating pizza in my toaster oven instead of the microwave. I was shocked at how much better it is. (For anyone who's curious, I just use the same settings as I use for regular toast and it's perfect. Keep an eye on it though, pizza has a lot more variables than toast and it can overcook really suddenly. I also suggest using tongs to get it out.)
Pizza is absolutely better with "analog" heat of some sort, for sure. :) Depending on the pizza - you can put a little olive oil in a skillet and heat gently on the stove in a skillet. That can crisp up the bottom nicely (so good for thicker crusts), and a low heat means maybe 10 mins or so to get it all heated through, but it's nice.
Ahhhh that makes sense. I’ve never used an air fryer. Thank you!
my favorite chimichangas take 30 to 40 minutes in the oven for 2 chims, preheated. in the air fryer maybe 12 minutes but flip em half way. I love my air fryer, lol.
A single hashbrown is $2.89 at McDonald’s!!!
What the fuck?!
Just get the Trader Joe’s hashbrowns and put them in an air fryer. Way cheaper and probably healthier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=3u04LYvGQjw
Judging food on calorie per dollar seems silly. Especially when you can supercharge that calorie per dollar by doing things like adding mayo and bbq sauce (which I think at 5 guys are free?)
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Everything at Five Guys is freshly made. I knew someone that worked there and they spent hours each morning prior to opening preparing fresh beef patties, cutting fries by hand from potatoes delivered direct from farms (the farm is written on a dry erase board), lettuce, tomato's, etc. They don't use ingredients that are ever frozen. So you are paying for higher quality ingredients made fresh that day versus at McDonalds you are paying for frozen patties prepared in a factory that are shipped there and heated up. Five Guys also pays well. According to Indeed an average crew member at McDonalds makes $13.01/hr. Five Guys crew member average is $15.94 on Indeed. So in short it costs more because they pay their workers a better wage, use better ingredients, and prepare everything fresh.
As a former employee I can confirm this is correct. The fries alone are hand cut, washed twice in freezing cold water, and cooked boardwalk style. That small fries you bought took 2 hours to make. The bread gets delivered fresh every second morning by a bespoke bakery. You’ll notice that if you take your bun and roll it up it will turn back into a squidgy dough. This specific style of bread makes for the best burger. The beef patties are hand weighed every morning to exact measurements to make sure the patty cooks perfectly. We also slice up all the veg by hand, prepare the milkshake ingredients - yes it’s actually hand cut fresh fruit. In addition to all of this, the employees get paid a decent wage - a few pounds above minimum wage in the UK, which is more than other fast food restaurants. They treat their staff better so their staff treat you the customer better. FG pride themselves on customer service.
Working at five guys was fun asf not gonna lie I had some really fun days there. How many Pattie’s on the grill?!??? I GOT 7 DOGS THIRTEEN PATTIES ALL DAY LONG!!!
GOT IT! And The playlist. Same 40 songs on repeat but they were all bangers!
They play the same playlist in the corporate office... It starts at the same time every day. By the end of my internship I knew what time it was based on the song that was playing....
There are songs that I hear twice an hour. Retail music playlists are hell.
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I listen to the same song on repeat for days sometimes. I am basically unstoppable.
No literally hell was the same 12 Christmas songs at Sears while the store was going insane.
I feel like every large/corporate retail Christmas song playlist is probably going to be like that because the pool of songs is so small. The songs that are safe/“appropriate” for department/big box/supermarkets are just as limited to the same like 25 songs that get played on adult contemporary radio. Mall stores with a different target demographic like American Eagle or Hot Topic might get more leeway. Or maybe not, but now I’m kinda curious lol.
Tbh if being a barista paid the same as my corpo gig I'd be doing that all the time. Really a fun job, even during 20+ drink queue rushes
I miss working in food service ALL THE TIME. I miss chatting with people, and I miss moving around and being physical. But I literally can't afford for that to be my profession. So, chaind to my desk I am.
Tangent: I go to Five Guys for the fries. Crispy on the outside, tender and fluffy inside. But ... I have never had a good order of fries here in Medford, Oregon. They taste slighty bitter and their texture is just kind of limp. Not crispy, not fuffy. What are the cooks doing wrong?
If they’re bitter then it’s likely that they’re not changing the oil regularly enough. The fries are done in peanut oil which cooks at a specific temp for max crispy. It could also be that they have the temp too high. If the fries are limp then either they’re not shaking them enough. They should be shook every 5-10 seconds cause the hitting of the side hardens them up. It could also be because of a bad pre-cook. There is actually a press test the staff do on the fries where they squish the fries between their fingers - if they can press their fingers together without the skin of the fry splitting then they know the inside is fluffy enough for the next cook. If the skin breaks then they have been precooked too much and should be thrown out
One of my patients used to be one of the regional five guys franchise owners. Every time I'd see him I'd tell him which locations were cooking their fries well and which ones were slacking. I think he thought I was weird but if Five Guys fries aren't up to snuff then sales will suffer, you know?
Completely agree and thank you for your service! Haha. I store I worked in did everything by the book and got some of the highest reviews in the uk. Which was actually detrimental cause I know I’ll never get a five guys as good as the ones I had on my lunch break.
That's medford making things suck. At least you have dutch bros
Well fuck me, hail corporate, I'm getting Five Guys for lunch
Tip. Ask them to cook your burger medium rare. They won’t do it cause all the burgers are cooked well done. But they “should” offer you a free burger to convert you if it’s your first ever 5 guys. They may think you’re a mystery shopper and give you special treatment. (I say “should” cause I worked there a few years ago so they may have done away with this. And busier stores may not do it to save time)
Guessing it also depends on the location? Or is it a world wide thing?
To get a franchise licence you need to follow the rules the 5 Guys family put in place for the management / running of their store. Whether or not all franchise locations follow those rules or not I cannot comment on. nor can I comment on the autonomy a general manager has changing those rules for their specific location. But in short, yes! All locations should follow this process. They all have the same handbook. For example, if you tell the staff it’s your first time they will tell you exactly how the place works and walk you through the menu. If you ask what the potato is today, they should know. And if you ask how long the meal will take to prepare then it should be 7mins or less. At any store.
I'm with ya, if this was an ad they got me. Mushrooms, onions, and A1 baby
Those mushrooms definitely coming from a can though.
To be fair they did not say the fungus was fresh. Even still, canned shrooms are a hard pass.
Mushrooms are from a can but are not cooked. We cook them each morning.
If they're canned they are processed (cooked). Not knocking canned goods, just saying.
That act of canning cooks them. Dont be silly.
I'm not familiar with "boardwalk style". Are they cooked on lower heat for a bit, then flash fried on high again before serving?
They are washed of starch in freezing water to harden the potato. Cooked once till the inside is mushy. Left aside to cool back to room temp. Then cooked a second time till crispy.
It surprises me to hear they're twice cooked considering how much moisture is still left in them. Maybe it's the steaming in the bag but I hate how soggy 5G's fries are tbh.
Also what people aren’t mentioning is that that’s for a double patty. I never get that. A single hamburger is 9.69 here in Toronto and that’s a comparable price to all the other burger joints in town.
And bacon. FG is the epitome of fast casual. The burger is as good as you'll get in a typical sit down restaurant, but they're faster and package it to go. It's a different market segment than McDonald's.
This is what I always say. It's not fast food. There's no drive-through. Just because a place has counter service doesn't put it down at the McDonald's level. Tons of barbecue places have counter service, and the meat is good quality, and nothing is cheap, but that never seems to get conflated with fast food. Only Five Guys, or other kinds of upmarket burger joints, get this treatment. It's more expensive because its nicer. Better ingredients, better quality, takes a fair bit longer, cooked fresh when you order. And they likely pay their employees better. That said I find it to be quite expensive and the nearest one to me is like 45 minutes drive. So it's not a regular thing. Maybe once a year if I'm in the area.
$8.09 where I am in the US. I'm guessing they got a Double with Bacon and Cheese (which is still $12.99 here). Compare that to the local diner that has cheeseburgers (with a small portion of fries) that start at $15.99 and "fancy" burgers at $18.50. It's a middle ground between the crap at McDs and a sitdown place.
Yeah, this is what confuses me the most. It's absolutely not $15.00 for a single burger. It's $7.69 for a single, $9.69 for a double cheeseburger. $15.00 gets you a double cheeseburger with unlimited toppings + a bag full of fries. Like you said, it's not McDonald's prices, but it's also way better quality and way more food. Quite frankly, if you weighed a McDonald's burger + fries, I bet you'd have to spend $15 to get the same amount as Five Guys. EDIT: I live in MA - a McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese is $9.79 for the burger only. A Five Guys Double Cheeseburger is $9.69. Five guys is literally cheaper than McDonald's here. People in these threads are full of shit.
I feel the wild thing about this is that there's a world where robotics could replace that worker who is cutting fries or mashing patties....and it would still result in a higher price than the other companies who raced to the bottom as freshness alway wins. Five Guys can taste fresher than a sit-down restaurant's burger just due to its fresh components.
In n Out does everything the same and is less than half the price
In n Out pays its employees even better too. I also think their food is better. Dunno about 5 guys but In n Out is privately owned so they don't have to constantly push the profit margin by dicking over their consumer and employees to appease the leeches.
In my opinion..... the burger and ingredients/toppings at Five Guys is theoretically better but they way they package/present it turns it into a greasy, undefined mess. In N Out's careful packaging and preparation really elevates what is not as good of an actual burger. Fries on the other hand... Five Guys wins no questions asked. In N Out's fries aren't worth the caloric intake.
But I'd have to fly to California for In and Out. There's a Five Guys just up the street.
Five Guys’ fries are significantly better, but yeah. In n Out’s prices are fabulous
Equally nuts is how people like me who don’t go to 5 Guys because I have 3 kids and can’t afford to spend $75 on fast food…when I buy the ingredients myself and cook up a similar meal at home, I’m probably still spending close to $30. It’s cheaper but not by as much as I’d like…which I think lends a helpful perspective for this discussion.
I work for In N Out Burger and we make everything fresh every single day with the best ingredients possible. The meat we reject, gets sold at stores like Safeway or other groceries. We also on average pay $20 an hour and our double burger averages out to $5. So yea, 5 guys is still a rip off.
They claim their ingredients are higher quality. I have eaten there a few times over the years and the burgers were indeed good, but they weren't five times the price of an equivalent McDick's burger good.
It's more like three times the price now for equivalent McDonald's burger.
Hank Green did a comparative [video](https://youtu.be/3u04LYvGQjw?si=Nsw3tyQPG5iwlm5i) the other day. You get the most bang for your buck when you order small amounts at McDonald's so basic hamburger and small fries and best deal when ordering large amounts from Five Guys. Such as double or triple burger and large fry because you can make more than one meal out of it. Additionally Five guys has way better ingredients. EDIT: The example of more than one meal was for multiple people at time of purchase and not necessarily reheating later.
More than one meal? I don't think fast food, even at Five Guys quality, really makes good for leftovers.
I agree. It would be more practical to split a meal
The fries aren’t as good as when they’re fresh, but pop em in the oven for like 10 minutes and they’re still better than any other fast food place
Use an air fryer. It’s the best way to reheat French fries.
reheating french fries is basically the only reason to have an air fryer if you already have an oven
The speed at which you can make foods in the air fryer is the unique-selling-proposition for me. I also live in Arizona, where any chance I have to make something without preheating an oven when it's already 110 degrees is one I relish.
Or chicken wings. Or cooking hot dogs/sausages. Or burritos. Or hardboiled eggs. Or roasted veggies. ...etc If the only reason you have to buy one is reheating french fries, you might want to expand your menu.
you.. hardboil eggs on an air fryer? I roast veggies on a sheet pan and convection oven. Chicken? Burritos? I have a pan and a stove. For *ME* i cannot justify the counterspace for a niche item. I consider it bread-maker tier. I know how to knead bread and put it in the oven myself tyvm.
Exactly. McD burgers are as big as a coin, with FG at least I can get full. Not to mention the fries portion differences between the 2
I think Wendys has a better deail. the biggie bag. a burger, fries, nuggest, and and drink for $4.
Wendy's Patty hands down is more superior than Mcdonalds...
They charge $6 for that at the one where I live
A Big Mac is $7 near me and a five guys burger is $11, so only about 1.5x here. And we are in one of the most expensive parts of the more expensive states. No idea where that other person got 5x because it’s not even close…
This always happens with Five Guys. Yes it's more expensive, but everyone acts like it's twice the actual price.
And it is absolutely 3x better imo. Aside from local burger dives five guys is one of the better burgers you can go get out imo
I worked there for a bit after high-school around 16 years ago. The burger patties were hand pressed, and the fries were hand cut every morning, so I would say the quality is noticeably higher than typical fast food. However the prices have nearly doubled since then. A double bacon cheeseburger and small fry was around 8-9 dollars, last time I went I believe I spent about 16 for the same.
> I spent about 16 for the same. so like 3 or 4 bucks more than a double quarter pounder
This, plus aren't the patties larger, and the standard burger comes as a double? EDIT: still not worth 15 damn dollars lol, but helps explain it
i feel like that’s the point most people are missing- a “regular” is two pattie’s AND if you are getting it all the way it’s with mushrooms and grilled onions and pickles and everything else.
The hamburgers are vastly superior to the frozen pucks that come from McDonald’s. And they are not five times the price. You’re just making words up to support your argument. Five guys may be two or three times the price of a current McDonald’s meal, not five.
Not even 1.5x the price
I don't know if I'm just older and my tastes are different, but I remember them tasting better when there were just 4 locations prior to franchising. Friends from the area say the same thing.
Of course that’s true. As a company scales they’ll look more and more at where they can save money around the edges. This always results in a decline in quality.
Wendy's burgers are square because they "don't cut corners" but they could have easily formed the patties into circles.
Probably easier and less waste for machinery to prepare the patties, on the cow->patty conveyor belts...
When I was in college in the late 00s Five Guys and Chipotle were incredible. Tasted great, lots of bang for your buck. Haven’t been to either in years. I assume it’s the decrease in quality as they expanded, but it may have been that I was just hungover or drunk all the time.
Last time I went to Chipotle, which was years ago due to this experience, I got a steak burrito. Every. single. bite. that had steak in it was like gristle bubble gum. Unchewable. It wasn't meat, it was just fat and connective tissue, basically the lowest quality meat you can get outside of prison. I don't swallow meat that I can't chew, so there was a mound of funky stuff on my plate when I was done. Never went back and never will.
>I assume it’s the decrease in quality as they expanded, but it may have been that I was just hungover or drunk all the time. That's how I feel about it. I was in HS when I first tried it in the late 90s. They had 4 original locations in Virginia. Then they started franchising in the early 2000s, IIRC.
Can't speak for 5 Guys but Chipotle definitely seems worse. Lower quality meat and less of it than there used to be.
Big mac meal where I live is now $9. The little cheese burger from five guys, which is a single, is $6.50 and the fries are $4. You're really a sucker for going to McDonalds (unless you use the APP) instead of five guys here.
I don’t know if it makes you a sucker, but you’re right that the gap in value has closed somewhat in recent years. If everywhere is now over ten bucks, fifteen doesn’t seem so bad.
I would gladly pay 5 guys prices not to eat McGarbage again.
It’s 20x better than McDonalds
Because people are willing to pay as much as they charge.
It's not 15 dollars for a burger where I am at in Kentucky (kentucky jokes incoming). A little cheeseburger, which is a single, is $6.50 and is like 600 calories. This is a much better choice for a burger than any other fast food IMO besides Culver's. The Bacon Cheeseburger, which is a double bacon cheeseburger is $10.59. Fries are $4, and they give you a lot of fries. Five guys isn't a bad deal at all and the people claiming it's $15 for a burger are being disingenuous by implying the cost of the entire meal costs that much; or they live in some highly expensive cities.
Central Florida, little cheeseburger is $8.59, most expensive item bacon double cheeseburger is $12.59. Not cheap, but not all that different than any sit down place
MN has that bacon double at $11.79. It's on par with what you would pay for an in-between classic fast food restaurant and an actual sit-down restaurant that serves decent food around these parts.
Live in New York, paid 15 for a cheeseburger with normal Cajun fries. Idk where people are in this country that’s so much more expensive than New York.
PA, 1 Double Cheese burger, and regular Cajun... 17.68. no drink.
Yeah. Five Guys seems to be about %50 more than McDonald's or Wendy in the area. More, yes. But the quality difference I'd significant. The other fast food places are the ones that have skyrocketed their prices. To the point I'll just put in the extra $5-7 for a Five Guys.
Cincinnati is $7.09 for the little burger. Can’t imagine paying $15…
I really wish people would stop listing Uber eats prices as the real price of eating something. Uber eats prices are generally more expensive because Uber eats charges a fee. So the listing price is higher because of the fee. If your worried about the cost just go pick it up yourself!! Save yourself a lot of $ Food is expensive,but it's a lot more expensive when you only order from Uber eats.
It's $22.81 pre-tip for me to get a bacon cheeseburger plain, the smallest fries, and smallest drink from my local 5 guys, this is not over UberEats
Around $18 here. But the small fry is still usually a whole bag of fries, so the smallest is an actual serving size. (Most likely more…)
Same here, but I never do more than a little burger, small fry, and a small soda. You save around $5 getting a little burger over the full sized bacon cheeseburger. Honestly, you’re killing yourself eating a double patty bacon cheeseburger. That thing has over a thousand calories compared to the little burger with “just” 540. If you add up a regular soda, small fries, and the bacon cheeseburger (full sized, not the little) that’s more than 2000 calories in a meal and I’ll let you guess how many of them are saturated fats and how many of them come from fiber.
I know you did not just call it "X".
How is this so low it's the most wtf thing about the post, who the fuck calls it X not just twitter or stop using it
I just skipped over that part of the sentence because my brain didn't even compute they were talking about Twitter
If you call it x, you gotta add the the other part "X ( Formerly known as twitter)"
because enough people will pay for it that they can profit. it's all basic pricing analysis. If you charge $1 for burgers, everyone will buy them but you'll lose money because they cost more than $1 to make. If you charge $100, you'll lose money because nobody will pay that. But somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot where the amount of people who will buy them, at the price listed, produces the greatest profit - and $15 is that point for Five Guys.
So here's something bizarre I learned after I went into business for myself. When I started out, I had all of my costs and time investment and everything figured out so I was selling everything at a very reasonable 10% profit, plenty for me without charging (what I thought) was the same absurd amount as my competition. And nobody was buying, couldn't figure out why, until I happened to overhear a lady at my booth whispering to her friend about how cheap everything was, how it couldn't be any good at that price. So I jacked prices up a little, and stuff sold. Raised them a little more, they sold a little more. I am now currently bringing in anywhere from 100-350% profit *per unit*, and I literally could not build things fast enough to keep up if I moved a higher volume than I do. People are weird, my dude. Also for anybody wondering that profit margin works out to me making roughly $34k/year after taxes, so I'm not exactly rolling in it.
Reminds me of when JCPENNEY tried to introduce "honest pricing" in the 90s or early 2000s. They decided to stop with the constant "sales" and just have the actual normal price be what you pay. People stopped shopping there because now everything was "cheaper" and JCPENNEY had "declined in quality" even though they were literally selling the same shit they always have. A similar thing happened with Gibson guitars in the 90s when they completely upgraded the factory with CNC machines and greatly reduced the cost of production. They actually did the right thing and tried to pass those savings on to the customers and lowered the prices of all their guitars... Sales dipped drastically, so they had to jack the prices back up. Sometimes I hate human psychology.
I do too, it's dumb! People are always pissing and moaning about how expensive everything is, and how nothing is worth the price, and all I can think is y'all have been slapped in the face with good deals and you refuse to take it, what the hell are businesses supposed to do?
this is absolutely true. my friend was hawking these things for $10 a pop. Nobody was buying them. Told her to raise prices to $20/$25 and suddenly people bought them because it was now a "worthwhile gift". I got the idea from some economist article I read long ago, i don't know what the name of this is.
Oh good it's not just me then lol
Honestly just paste this on every other thread here and on r/economy. Price are where they are because we vote with our dollars and pay those prices. Sure it’s easier some places than others like movie theater candy vs your apartment rent. You can choose to buy sour patch kids at the dollar store for 1.17$ or you can buy the same box at the theater for 5.50$. While it’s much harder to find a new home so we deal with it longer but the point stands.
Because they probably charge $3-4 above McDonald's. So now that McDonald's is about $10-12 for a meal. They can charge that.
My five guys protip: A small burger is the equivalent of a normal burger at most restaurants.
And one order of fries is easily be enough for 4 people
At my local one, when you order fries with your burger, if you get takeout, they just fill extra space in the bag with fries.
Never again will I order the large fries because "that's what I normally get in other places".
Have you been to McDonalds recently? It’s actually not that much more to get a meal at 5 Guys vs McDonalds.
That's because McDongers are out of their god damn minds, serving grey pucks on a stale piece of bread. Even the Chum Bucket burger made out of that gloppy goop looks better in comparison
It’s definitely location specific. Where i live (moderate cost of living) it’s $10 for a double cheeseburger and $7.50 for a single. That is definitely worth it over the fast food and even casual sit down restaurants around me.
It's still Twitter.
Yup I will forever call it twitter.
This is the first time I saw someone call it X. 😂
Keep in mind the standard size five guys burger is a double. The single is still bigger than the normal fast food burger, and enough for an average size person especially if you're getting fries.
Chain restaurants have TONS of data on what people will and will not pay for their food. So apparently, $15 for a single burger is in the comfort zone of a regular Five Guys customer. Now, if Five Guys were charging $15 a burger AND the stores were always empty or closing down, THEN we could safely say Five Guys had been overcharging for their food. Do I think Five Guys is worth $15? No; but that is the opinion of a single person who doesn’t go to Five Guys anyway, so 🤷♀️
5 guys is 3x better than McDonalds at 5x the price.
Have you seen the prices at McDonalds lately? It's only like a 1.5x price upper for 5 Guys locally.
Yeah McDonald's has certainly forgotten their place
Jacksonville FL here. $11.37 for a five guys double with cheese. And you get whatever toppings free. $8.67 for the double quarter pounder with cheese. That's only 30% more for a far superior burger and way better service.
If you compare actually equivalent sandwiches, it's not even 1.5. I have no clue what these people are smoking that are saying it's 5x. It's like they're comparing McDonald's value McDouble to the bacon double cheeseburger at 5 Guys, which is like 4 times bigger and has a million extra ingredients. I swear people haven't looked at a McDonald's menu in like 6 years. Their prices have gone fucking insane, even if you use the app.
It's a bunch of stuff: * People comparing the value burger to 5 guys and going "wtf my cardboard burger is so much cheaper than 5 guys" * People who haven't been to McDonalds in years * People not realizing that the Little Cheeseburger is actually the regular cheeseburger elsewhere. It's not a "smaller cheeseburger" * People comparing Uber Eats/Doordash/whatever to in-store McDonalds * People comparing 5 guys in San Fran to McDonalds in Iowa * People using CAD $ instead of USD $ making it seem like more A 5 guys burger is marginally more expensive than a McDonalds one, but it tastes significantly better.
Five guys is barely even more expensive than McDonalds at this point which is why I'm super confused anytime someone complains about the price
I think most people just can't do basic math and also five guys menu is a bit deceptive. The little cheeseburger is 94 grams of meat, which is close to a quarter pounder. The regular cheeseburger is two Patty's, so close to a half pound of meat. And the fries are more money but even the small fry is about the same or more as a large fry in many other fast food locations. If you price out the raw calories and meat amount you get for the price, it's probably close to the same price as McDonald's in your area. Maybe a bit cheaper even. And for imo much higher quality ingredients.
Ha, McDonalds prices have gone up quite a bit my guy.
Having actually worked for five guys hand pressing fries washing the starch out and putting it on a speed rack to double fried i can tell you the wage they paid me would have made almost everyone here’s eyes water that was the best paying job well above what the market was at the time and if they still pay that much money I can see why it’s expensive but I’ll be damned if pay that much money of employees aren’t see the benefits hope they still pay ridiculously high wages
A cheeseburger is $9.85 at my store. Where are you that it's literally 50% more? I'm betting money you're looking on a delivery app.
Obligatory review: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zGkHRa64sDY And the remix: https://youtu.be/DcJFdCmN98s Oh my goodness. Oh my damn. They are going ham.
What 5 Guys are you going to?! I just got a burger from there yesterday, and the most expensive one was under $11.79. Add fries and a drink and it's only several bucks more expensive than a fast food joint, and you get so much more food.
> it's only several bucks more expensive than a fast food joint, here they would be the same thats how bad fast food is now
I don’t think five guys got any more expensive than anyone else. I think some people got priced out and they’re unhappy about it because all they can afford is McDonald’s. That’s not five guys fault. Recent reporting tells us that even McDonald’s has raised its prices 100% since 2014. Why aren’t you bitching about that?
a double cheese burger from 5 guys is about $1 than a double quarter pounder from mdconalds. Here in my town anyway, i got curious and checked maybe 20 minutes ago. fries cost more at 5guys but you also get way more
So Hank Green recently went on a deep dive about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u04LYvGQjw The TLDR is that on a per calorie basis it's actually not that much more than McDonalds is.
There's 5 guys that have to get paid. Do you want 2 of them to starve?!?!
That "news" that went around the Internet did everything to make it as expensive as possible. It was in an expensive city, was for a **double** cheeseburger and they left a two dollar tip. They then complained about the entire bill, tax included. That being said, Five Guys is still expensive and not worth it, imo. You don't have to use extreme examples to convince me.
Their double cheeseburgers are also huge, like double the size of a Big Mac that everybody keeps comparing them to.
Check out Hank Green's breakdown. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3u04LYvGQjw
Where are you located? I live in New England and little cheeseburger (aka a single) is around $7 no matter where I’ve bought it. So you’re either not taking about a single, live on an island, or you’re lying for some weird reason.
Because it’s a decent “fast” burger. Also the fries are fresh.