Five Guys Burgers and Fries

One of my best friends and I headed over to Liberty Station to have a nice picnic and catch a film under the stars. While shopping at Trader Joe's for some snacks, my keen eye spotted the small Five Guys sign and I freaked out. After coming off I freshly unseating In-N-Out as the people' favorite burger, you know I had to drop in and see if their best was really better than THE best.

The lines here are pretty long and head right out the back door. Five Guys offers their guests raw peanuts to munch on while they wait but that has the side effect of littering the entire restaurant floor with discarded peanut skins and shells making the whole place seem really dirty. Plus, it wasn't really appetizing watching a bunch of extremely overweight folks jam their grubby hands into the bin over and over to replenish their cheeks with the stuff.

To compare burgers, I ordered the bacon cheeseburger with everything, along with an order of fries. The meal took a while to prepare and there was almost nowhere to sit, especially not outside at their dog-friendly tables, and people would just crowd up the pick-up area waiting for their grub. When we did receive it, I noticed that the bag was completely soaked through with oil, and as Homer Simpson protests, it's no good unless he can see through the oily bag. I just find it to be a little gross.

Finally the time came to take a bite out if my humongous sandwich and I found it quite delicious. Ordering it with everything did sort of muddle the flavors all together and it was difficult to appreciate each part for what it was. The fries were kind of soggy once I got to them, but were well seasoned and cooked well done. Tasty as they were, they were on the pricey side. We didn't even bother with a drink because it would have brought the total cost to $20 for the 2 of us and that was kind of ridiculous for fast food.

While the Five Guys burger was pretty good, the question you have to ask yourself is whether it was twice as good to cost twice as much as the awesome In-N-Out burger. Ultimately the answer is no, maybe it was on par or a little better, but definitely not worth the huge price tag you're asked to pay and the distance you have to drive to go get it when there's a perfectly good In-N-Out everywhere. Sorry folks, I'm sticking with the far better value here and going with a double-double animal style.

Food: 8/10

Service: 8/10

Price: $$

Atmosphere: 7/10