Five Guys Burgers and Fries - Portland, ME


I should what? Review Five Guys Burgers and Fries?

 

Yeah, OK… sure, like I’ll just debase myself by doing that. Uh-huh. A place with a name that rhymes for tit’s sake I’m laughing so hard at you right now.

 

Have you ever even seen me in a Five Guys? Like ever? No? Well maybe that should tell you something about the type of person I am. Like, mainly, that I am not a person who would just saunter into a red-and-white-tiled chain burger joint being like, “yes, I should review this!!!”

 

Or what, do you think I’d… like I’d, like I’d go there clandestinely? Like I’d actually wrap myself in some sort of taupe trench coat and black fedora disguise and show up one minute before Five Guys opened at 11:00 AM so nobody I know would have any chance of seeing me there? Yeah I hope you’re laughing at that image too.

 

One regular bacon chee for this guy. Pfffffff. Oh yeah, right. *Said in a snarky, unserious, nasally voice* I’ll have caramelized onions and ketchup and mustard and hot peppers and lettuce and tomato please. Thanks Dennis!

 

Right? Is that how I would sound?

 

I really can’t believe you’d even entertain the thought that I’d review Five Guys seriously… like a chain burger joint deserves a review. Jesus, I’m laughing. You think a burger with a soft, warm bun, juicy meat and vast array of toppings—fused by American cheese into a steaming block of savory joy deserves consciously-written words of either praise or dislike. What, did you think this blog was not called “Drunch” and, in fact, called “Dumb-ch?” Huh?

 

Ridiculous!

 

Funny stuff, man. What a joke…  you actually thought I should go into Five Guys and review their burgers and their fries? So—so let me get this straight—you were thinking that I would actually type, into a properly-formatted word document, something like: Five Guys may be a chain, but it’s also a source of hope in the corporate fast food pantheon. Eschewing computer-operated burger presses for actual grills, the only thing that makes Five Guys “fast” is the Ford Motor Company-esque factory line through which each burger travels. As it’s passed from grill operator to toppings-man (toppings-woman? toppings-mate?) to, ultimately, the bagger, each burger’s consistency and speed comes from tightly honed preparation rather than idiot-proof, one-button-does-it fast food preparation.

 

Yeah is that what I’d write?

 

You know what? Maybe I actually will! Maybe, on some idiotic, ironic lark I will go to Five Guys and seriously order a burger. Ha! Wouldn’t that just be hilarious… me going to a chain burger place like Five Guys and actually, in reality, ordering food to eat! Nobody would believe it!

 

You know what? Here we go! I’m donning a real life jacket to actually sojourn to Five Guys at 11:30 in the morning. Is this not the most half-cocked hokum you could ever imagine? You want to come too, to personally witness this event of insane malarkey? Because if you don’t come, I kid you not, I will order two burgers! I will, in this reality in which we both simultaneously exist, order two full Five Guys burgers and eat them both if you do not come.

 

MmmmMmmm this looks gooooood *said SO sarcastically* 


You know what? Even if you do join me, as a piece of performance art, I’ll still eat two burgers. The funniest part? I will actually look as if I’m blissfully enjoying it.


Actually, listen to this. No, seriously sit down on a flat, stable, horizontal surface for this next piece of heinous lampoonery: how about I eat there for the next month or two. Hell, let’s call it a year! That’s right, every damn day I’m going to be at Five Guys, laughing, through a mouthful of burger, in your stupid face. Won’t that just be the tits of a joke! Yeah, that’s right. From now on if you see me in Five Guys it will be as the greatest practical joke played by a reviewer ever and not in any way connected to some clandestine addiction I may or may not appear to have to Five Guys burgers.

 

Wow, I’m really doing this aren’t I? What a balls-tastically real farce. I, a man of refined taste, will be posted up in a chain burger joint that offers free peanuts and refills for the foreseeable future. Truly this will be the greatest stunt ever.

 

Wow, I can’t believe you thought I’d ever seriously review Five Guys… just, wow.

 

 

FOOD: 

3.9 Stars

I can’t, in good conscience, give four stars to Five Guys. However, consider these the strongest, brightest, Polaris-like three point nine stars you have ever witnessed. The intense, almost primal, satiation that follows a Five Guys burger is the closest we come, in this day and age, to the gluttonous joy of killing a mammoth. And the grease-stained bag of fries you receive when ordering a small fry? It brings a tear of happiness to my eye.

PRICE: 

Tween

A fully-loaded, diet-be-damned meal still won’t have you scratching the teens.

AMBIENCE: 

Jovial Bomb Shelter

Red, white and oddly spare. The base model Ford Focus of fast food interiors. Everything you need and absolutely nothing extra.

SERVICE: 

Tomatoes… Umm… Pickles. No, not pickles… Umm… Wait, sorry…

The longest holdup invariably comes when you try to choose between putting caramelized onions or BBQ sauce (or both) on your burger.

EAT OR SKIP: 

Eat

There are three real hangover cures that I know of: intense exercise, more alcohol or a Five Guys burger. Unless you are on a Michael Phelps workout regimen—circa 2008—you can’t often eat at Five Guys. But that’s OK, I love it just the way it is.