5 Guys Burgers – Austin

Here’s my review of the newly opened 5 Guys Burgers & Fries, Austin location…as I said previously, I have never been to a 5 Guys before, but have been looking forward to it because of the reviews I’ve read and the comparisons to In-N-Out Burger. First of all, let me say that this location opened at 11am today and I had lunch there at approximately 11:45am. So some of the problems I had could most definitely be the result of the inexperience of the staff, and I won’t hold that against them on this first effort. Having said that, this was my experience…

Upon first entering 5 Guys, I noticed that it was a bit chaotic. The dining area’s layout so awkwardly planned  that they required a greeter to direct each new guest toward the correct direction of the ordering line. The constant shouting of both orders from the register area to the cooks and again from the pick-up area to the guests added to the hurried atmosphere. The girl that took my order was very friendly and asked if I’d ever been to a 5 Guys before. Since I hadn’t, she thoroughly explained the menu to me, which was quite nice since I wasn’t really sure about the difference between a regular famous burger and a little burger (turns out the regular is a double meat).

One nice thing (in theory…more on this shortly) about 5 Guys is their extensive list of free toppings for burgers. Lots of things that normally cost extra like grilled onions, mushrooms, jalapenos, etc. are on their list of free toppings. It’s kind of a nice bonus. I’m not normally big on extras…I like a pretty pure burger, but I decided to take them up on a little bit of this and placed the following order:

Little Cheeseburger w/lettuce, extra pickles, mustard, and grilled onions
Regular Famous Fries
Large Drink (she talked me into a large with the “it’s only 20 cents more” line…how do I always fall for that?)

I hate Hate HATE raw onions, but LOVE grilled onions, so when I saw grilled onions on the free toppings list, I figured what the heck! I also LOVE pickles on my burgers…the more pickles, the better. You honestly cannot put too many pickles on a burger. If you think you’ve put too many, double it and you’re getting close. So…what kind of burger did I receive?

My Little Cheeseburger came to me with lettuce, mustard, grilled onions, no pickles and extra raw onions! Yippee! By the time I realized what had happened, I had already taken 2 or 3 bites and really didn’t feel like taking it back…it was good enough. I’m not that picky, and like I said above, it was the first day and the first hour of the place being open…I was expecting a couple of hiccups. No biggie. Here’s what it looks like out of the bag:

The burger was wrapped in that foil. There was also another giant handful of fries in the bag. They give you a TON of fries. Don’t order a large fries unless you’re planning to share with a family or you’re starving. I had enough with a regular for 2 people. The fries were quite good. Thick cut…tasted freshly cut. There was a sign up saying where the potatoes were grown and what kind the were. I liked that a lot. The burger itself was less than thrilling. Sorry for the low res pic…I only had my cel phone with me:

Starting at the top, the bun was fairly gummy. As you can see in the 2nd pic, biting into it just smooshed the bun completely. It’s texture was not a very desirable one at all. The lettuce tasted fresh. The grilled onions could have been grilled longer…kind of boring. The cheese was standard and gooey and when mixed with the gummy bun, it was not a great combination. The meat itself, while not bad in any way, was plain with a noticeable lack of seasoning. The couple of bites around the edge that were crisped by the grill had nice texture/flavor, but those were few and far between unfortunately. Most of the meat was a bit dull.

The biggest drawback to all of this was that, for a Little Cheeseburger (with free toppings), a regular fries, and a large drink (only $0.20 more than the smaller option), my bill came to $9+! Now, if this was the best burger I’d ever had, I would have been more than happy to pay that price, but it wasn’t even close.  I’ll wait a couple of weeks and give 5 Guys another shot, but today, they weren’t even close to competing with In-N-Out Burger. Today, In-N-Out wins on atmosphere, burger quality (top to bottom…everything from bun to veggies to cheese to meat), fry quality (though 5 Guys fries were the best thing that I had there, In-N-Out frys are still better), price…everything. According to this photo that I took a few months ago, I a similar In-N-Out meal (#2) would cost $4.39 (plus tax):

Unfortunately, it would also cost the price of airfare…