1st Five Guys

After our Vulture Peak Hike last Thursday, Nathan Jr and I stopped in Surprise AZ at the new Five Guys hamburger restaurant that opened up there several months ago.  We'd heard rave reviews, and while my son had tried Five Guys at the Washington Airport on a layover a few years ago, I'd not sampled this famous food that I'd previously heard so much about.

We arrived at Late Late lunch, nearly 3pm, usually a lull point in most hamburger joints.  There were only 2 people in line ahead of us.  Copious peanut containers were available, if we wanted to deshell our own peanuts, but we chose not to.  We'd heard the "fries are amazing!" but they're also coated in peanut oil and laden with superfluous carbs.   Since a "single serving" is about 1 gallon of fries, we opted to just get bacon double cheeseburgers, and drink our left-over hiking water out on the veranda.  Total wallet damage was $15.23 (or $6.89/burger + draconian & regressive AZ sales tax).  The cook your burger and make it to order as you wait, to your specifications, so there's no burgers "under heat lamps".  I had them put lettuce, pickles, and mushrooms on my burger.  Nathan Jr had lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, jalapenos and green peppers.  They'll put however number of toppings you want on your burger, no questions or arguments.  If you want 4 slices of cheese, they'll slab on 4 slices of yellow "American Cheese".  You want triple jalapenos?  triple jalapenos it shall be. 

While this is an interesting and alluring aspect that "goes beyond" the "special orders don't upset us" motto of  Burger King, most Americans apparently have no editing mechanism, and go "hog wild" on multiple extra toppings at Five Guys.  While eating adjacent to the parking lot, we were witness to a 1/2 dozen SUVs ooze out their baleen-like (baleen is French for "whale") denizens.  Normal sized teenage girls, with middle aged +180 lbs mom, and +200 lbs grandma with a knee brace, massively bulging cankles, four pointed cane, and severe physical exertion to struggle the 30 feet from SUV parking space to Five Guys door, which she barely fit through.  Young teenagers... your genetic future awaits you, predictably.  My son and I were - by visual evidence - the lowest body fat percentage humans in the whole place, which probably had about 80 people in it by the time we left. 

I enjoyed my burger, but there was no forks or knives available with which to eat the cheesy, bacon-y, mushroom-y contents and discard the buns, so I ate about 1/2 the top and bottom buns, and all the juicy goodness in-between.  I watched customer after customer get massive bags of fries refilled (free refills, I've been told), and most large customers gorged on peanuts while they waited the 5 to 8 minutes it took the 4 cooks to rapidly grill and make their made-to-order burgers.  Nathan Jr enjoyed his as well, and agreed that it 'hit the spot' after a long hike and climb, as a late lunch.  If I go back to Five Guys, I'll take my own knife & fork, and try not to focus on the morbidly obese fellow customers shuffling, zombie like, all around me.