Five Guys – San Marcos, CA
Five Guys Burger
Well the long awaited and anticipated review of Five Guys is finally here!
Five Guys is a chain of burger restaurants that started out in Virginia in 1986. They franchised in 2003 they have literally exploded across the US to over forty states. Very impressive to most, but not the Ultimate Burger Review staff. In fact, this was our second visit to the new San Marcos location because the first visit was not good and we wanted to give them a second chance. The first time through the doors, it was jam- packed to the point they were just slinging burgers and fries with nary a care for quality. The fries were an under cooked glob of greasy potato mush sticks. To top it off, the ‘order number barker’, who had clearly enjoyed more than his fair share of burgers, had sweat dripping off his nose as he stuffed food into bags for the throngs of starving carnivores. Troy, being nimble and catlike, luckily jumped on a table that opened up while Mike ordered burgers. That created yet another problem (although not a Five Guys problem) because Meat Sack (aka. Mike) forgot the say, ”Duh, yeah can I have cheese on, duh, that too…duh”! So I got stuck with a cheese-less cheeseburger. Yeah, not a good experience.
Fast forward to a few weeks later and this Official UBR Review. For this review we had a special matriarch guest reviewer Mimi Lamson, mother of ‘Meat Sack’ Mike and ‘Meat Stick’ Greg. Our second first impression was the same; the place is still a damn zoo. Five Guys décor is standard ‘fast-food-like’ red and white trim with sacks of un-cut potatoes stacked throughout (which is kind of cool). Also, they have big boxes of shelled peanuts that you can chow on for free. It’s probably to reduce liability by ensuring that nobody starves to death waiting in the long friggin’ line to order a burger. They also have boastful quotations from random print media of how great their food is. By random I mean they have a sign touting that their fries were voted the best in Kaimin, Montana. How hard could that be? Probably the only fries you can get in Kaimin! Anyway, on to the official UBR review. Our burgers arrived in a brown paper sack, wrapped in tin foil…. Okay. The burger is pretty damn good and scored a 3.31 on the UBR scale of yum (and probably should be higher in Greg’s opinion). And the topping choices are really impressive. But the fries pretty much still sucked. The really sucked the first time and still sucked the second time, earning an undercooked 2.9 on the UBR scale. They would have received a much lower score if it wasn’t for the large portion and the fact that their seasoning is good. A menu item that Five Guys lacks though is milkshakes. Come on! You can’t be a classic burger joint without a milkshake offering! So Five Guys received a lackluster 3 for an overall experience score. In the argument on which is better, Five Guys or In & Out, you’ll find the UBR “Po Po” in the In & Out parking lot.
Five Guys San Marcos