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kottke.org posts about Five Guys

Hamburger battle: Five Guys v Shake Shack v In-N-Out

In a somewhat flawed test โ€” e.g. part of the In-N-Out burger package was confiscated by airport security โ€” the Shake Shack beat Five Guys and In-N-Out in a Serious Eats taste test.

Clearly the In-N-Out burgers making their trans-continental trip by plane would be at a disadvantage to the made-fresh-in-the-same-city burgers from Five Guys and Shake Shack, so in order to compensate for this, we made the decision to handicap all three burgers by the same amount. After a careful synchronization of watches, burgers were ordered from their respective establishments at precisely 1 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time (that’s 9 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. Pacific) and not tasted until the following morning.

I used to be a big In-N-Out fan (their burger is still a great fast food burger), but the slightly more upscale Shack Burger is my favorite burger in the whole wide world…it is indeed, as the article states, “a marvel of beefy engineering”.


Business lessons from the Five Guys

Great interview with Five Guys Burgers and Fries founder Jerry Murrell. Their entire focus is on the product.

The magic to our hamburgers is quality control. We toast our buns on a grill โ€” a bun toaster is faster, cheaper, and toasts more evenly, but it doesn’t give you that caramelized taste. Our beef is 80 percent lean, never frozen, and our plants are so clean, you could eat off the floor. The burgers are made to order โ€” you can choose from 17 toppings. That’s why we can’t do drive-throughs โ€” it takes too long. We had a sign: “If you’re in a hurry, there are a lot of really good hamburger places within a short distance from here.” People thought I was nuts. But the customers appreciated it.

Good name too. My son frequently asks if we’re “going to go visit the five guys” to get “hangleburgers and peanuts”.