Five Guys Burgers and Fries Gateshead — Restaurant in Gateshead

The dining experience at Five Guys is clearly striving for "informal" although the prices are rather outside of that. I'm not a fan of the throwaway culture which is epitomised by these restaurants where you are essentially picnicking: no cutlery, eating burgers wrapped in foil and drinking from single-use use plastic cups, all of which gets binned (not recycled) when you're done.

All that aside, we went along to give them a try, and were thoroughly impressed by the very friendly person on the till who explained the ordering process to us. Starting with a limited choices of basic burgers, you then get to choose condiments and add-ons, in an attempt to make it feel like you're designing your own burger. (Personally, I'd have preferred a pre-made option for my first visit.) A similar process was followed for the milkshakes.

I was underwhelmed by my burger. The bun shouted "MacDonald's" (in a cheap takeaway sort of way) as did the square of preprocessed cheese. The grilled onions were barely cooked and the tastiest ingredient was the wafer-thin layer of bacon which generally was completely lost amongst the other flavours.

The stand out item of our lunch was the milkshakes. We were able to include "malted milk" in them, which really adds to the flavour, and had one Oreo and one peanut butter, both of which were excellent, if rather expensive for their size.

So, in summary, 5 stars for the milkshakes and the very personable staff, 3 stars (or less) for the burger, and only 3 stars overall since burgers are their main items and I'd definitely not return for...

Brilliant experience, staff are all so helpful and friendly. Lady who served us was very pleasant, even said if you run out of fries just let us know! Young man working there automatically ran over to move chairs around for my Mam’s wheelchair. When we asked if it was ok to get a few more fires, he insisted on getting them and came back with a bag full! Food was lovely, fries too die for and the milkshakes are very well prepared. We especially loved the drink options, Dr Pepper Cherry Vanilla mmm. We will be back soon,. The burgers are a bit pricey but now we understand don’t need to buy fries for everyone it makes it much more reasonable. We will be back soon as the atmosphere was lovely, nice to see people enjoying helping customers with smiles on their faces. Five Guys should be very proud of...

First time going to a 5 guys and I was not disappointed. Firstly, the staff were brilliant, offering great advice and suggestions on the various toppings. The burger was good but the spiced fries and milkshake were phenomenal. If you have never had bacon in a milkshake then you should defiantly try it! Remember when everybody thought that salt and caramel didn't go together? Well this is exactly the same thing. It shouldn't work, but it really does. My suggestion is to go for chocolate, Peanut butter and bacon. You won't be disappointed! Overall, a great meal and I will...