Five Guys Glasgow St Vincent the American burger chain have moved into Glasgow occupying the space where the ever-busy Pesto used to be (and before that Easy Internet and even before that John Smith books!).
Menu
As we entered an employee handed us a paper menu and right away we noticed a few things, the loud music and the queue – as it’s not table service Mrs Foodie grabbed one while I stood in the burger line. It’s not cheap and yet they have the guile to claim that you can have FREE toppings with your £9 burger!
Cash desk/ cooking area
I ordered and paid for a burger and hot dog with two different fries and 2 regular re-fillable drinks (£2.50 each), our server helped out as best she could, recommending the peach drink from the machine which was the queue I headed to next (while passing the basket of free monkey nuts eh?)…
The famous soft drinks machine
There are apparently over 100 drinks so it took a while to pick…but it’s all style over substance, I opted to go for grape flavour, that mainstay of American confectionery flavours, and discovered in the process that they have not 1 but 6 different grape flavours, so did I want Fanta Grape, Diet Fanta Grape, Fanta Grape Lite, Fanta Grape Zero, Fanta Grape Still or Mega Max Fanta Grape Life Whisky Tango Foxtrot? In the end it didn’t really matter cos they all tasted equally bland and watery.
Front seating area
I sat down at our table with the two drinks but our number was nearing – a guy shouted out the order numbers; we were number 70 and after hearing 68 and then 69 I stood up and headed over… “71…72…73…74…75…” and then finally our order was called and our brown paper bag was handed over. The shouting guy apologised for the delay and hoped we enjoyed our meal (his throat must be agony at the end of every shift), ok so the staff were trying but…
Our “dinner”
The problem with Five Guys as we discovered is that it just isn’t special. Here’s our £24.75 meal. Are you in awe? If you are you shouldn’t be.
bacon cheeseburger £8.75
There was nothing, absolutely nothing about our burger that elevated it above the likes of Burger King and McDonalds. It was a squashed flaccid pitiful excuse of a burger. And what’s with the little bacon crisps? I like crispy bacon pieces but I had hoped for a rasher!
Bacon Cheese Dog £5.50
The hot dog looked equally sad and had the same crispy bacon which gave it a bit of taste as the dog itself was of the bland tastless variety.
Five Guys fries £2.75
We received two brown bags, 1 large and 1 small with both portions of fries coming in cups so pointlessly small that the bottom of each bag was lined with fries. We used our surplus napkins as plates but it wasn’t worth the effort as they were overcooked, dry & burnt and the Cajun fries were so over-seasoned that it may as well have been battery acid on them. We fed our remaining fries to the bin on the way out.
A sample of US Prices
Our bacon cheeseburger cost £8.75 while in the states it’ll set you back $7.79 (£5.14 at current rates) which is more like what you’d expect to pay for it. Same goes for everything else.
If it’s not clear by now, we were not impressed by Five Guys at all, in fact we’re giving them the ultimate burger insult – McDonald’s is better! At least there it’s cheap, you can have a conversation with people at your table without shouting and there’s no BS about it being “heaven in a brown paper bag”.
I left most of my fries and both of us were still hungry…but at least the toilets were clean.
We’ve now tried all the new burger joints on St.Vincent St and Five Guys is by far the worst, all it is, is an overpriced McDonald’s with funky drinks machine and for that I doubt we’ll ever be back.
TL;DR
+ free monkey nuts (but you’re not allowed to take them away!)
+ unlimited re-fills from drinks machine that has over 100 drinks
- we picked a few drinks from the machine and they were all watery and tasteless
– music too loud
– long queue to pay, then long queue to get drink then stand about and wait for your order to be shouted out
– far too much seasoning on the Cajun fries
– it’s fast but it isn’t really food
– burger was worse than a Big Mac
– overpriced
– meh
– meh, meh and meh some more!
