Five Guys Johnston Road — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Five Guys is a NYC based burger joint that opened their first branch on Johnston Road in Wanchai a few months ago. Opening hours are 11am to 10pm daily.

Like the recent Shake Shack openings last year, local reception was overwhelming at Five Guys resulting in ridiculous queues during the first few months. Queues are now more reasonable, prompting me to give Five Guys a try.

I visited on a Sunday evening around 7.30pm. Queue at that time less than 5 minutes, my burger and fries were then ready 8 minutes later. Ordering is simple. Choose plain, cheese or bacon cheeseburger. All sauces and extra toppings come free - select as may as you like. Fries come in three sizes, regular or spicy (extra cajun seasoning), soft-drinks are free refill. They have a few other items like vegetable sandwich, hot dogs and milk shakes (coming soon!).

You watch their team working being the counter preparing burgers non stop. They will shout out your number when ready. There is a large seating area and a few standing tables. All orders are served in brown take-away bags

During my visit I ordered a little fries. These were good, they added too much seasoning making them saltier than I like but the fries were better then what is served up at most burger places around Hong Kong.

I also ordered a cheeseburger with lettuce, pickle, jalapeno and mustard. It was served just like I ordered. It didn't look pretty when I unwrapped the foil wrapped round my burger. However and importantly, it tasted pretty good, much better than what I found at my first two tries at our new Shake Shack. Double patties were grilled well but retained a nice beef flavour, toppings were fresh, burger served in a sesame seed bun that held the burger together nicely.

In the end, these new high volume American style burger places are really just glorified fast-food restaurants. They serve food that is 2.5 X more expensive than McDonalds, it probably tastes around 2.5 times better so you know...

This is my second time ‘trying’ Five Guys. First time was back home in Seattle probably over 6 years ago and I remember I didn’t think much of it so never went back. Decided to give it another shot since it arrived in Hong Kong. After waiting in the queue for about 35 minutes, we got our foot in the door. We then enjoyed cracking and eating the complimentary peanuts before ordering and waiting to get our food. All throughout the restaurant were photos of magazines praising and all these celebrities who love Five Guys. All the hype about the burgers, I was hoping for the best! Hubby got the regular bacon cheeseburger ‘all the way’ which is a double patty with all the fixings. I got the little version with one patty and a large Cajun fries. They didn’t have shakes available at the time. Bummer. What I loved was the size of the large fries. It came in an overfilled tall cup and spilled into the bag which I’m not complaining about. I wasn’t a fan of the Cajun spice and would’ve opted for plain salt, but the fries were fresh and good. As for the burger, it had two slices of crispy bacon, halved into 4 pieces and stacked. The cheese is barely melted after getting your burger but let it sit in the foil wrapper for a minute or two before unwrapping. The burger tasted good, but it’s just not my burger-type preference. Maybe it wasn’t juicy enough. The little burger was quite filling, but overall I thought it tasted just okay and quite expensive. I’m glad I got to try it but probably...

I looked forward to Five Guys and went there on the opening day - within a week, I’ve been back 2 more times, I would have given 5 stars, but on my last visit yesterday I was a bit disappointed.

On opening day, we had bacon cheeseburgers with everything - all the customized toppings, check the video - the burgers were juicy and toppings were generous. For the Fries, I think they are currently the best fries in Hong Kong, on opening day & 2 days after, if you ordered the ‘little fries’ they filled up the small fries cup as well as the Bag containing the burger and fries with A LOT of fries, more than enough for 2 persons. Very generous serving of fries. On our 3rd visit ( yesterday ) there was no longer any “extra” fries, a ‘little fries’ cup was all you got in the bag. Since we ordered take away, we were surprised to see so little fries on this visit, if we knew, we would have ordered.a large or extra large size because we genuinely liked their fries, a bit inconsistent here. As for the Burger, the toppings seem less than last 2 visits.

However , the burger and fries were still super good, and this time we tried the Cheese Hot dog with everything. VERY GOOD. Complimentary Peanuts and unlimited refill drinks.

Overall super good & my favorite burger. If not for the inconsistent fries and toppings, I would have given 5 stars. Go early, spend less time in a queue. Avoid...