Five Guys Burgers and Fries Glasgow St Vincent St — Restaurant in Scotland

You know, it's tough being a burger joint on St. Vincent Street. There's a hundred metres where you have at least four dedicated establishments where burgers are their business. One has gone due to, frankly, being miles behind and I was surprised how long they did last. Five Guys is up there amongst one of the best franchised burger places I've been to. Their shakes are excellent, their burgers are great, the service is great. It's clean, tidy and the staff are efficient and effective. The format for ordering is personable and mature. You need to know what you want before you get in the queue and you need to use your ears when waiting for your order. It's a sensory experience which is curious given that I find Five Guys an upmarket McDonald's. The menu is simple. You can have a small or large single or double burger on its own or with bacon, cheese or both. That's it. That's the base menu. You can the personalise, at no extra cost, your burger with their toppings. The burgers are well made and satisfying. Not the best I've had but, given what I said earlier, they're more than acceptable. They are delicious. The fries are a real treat. Certainly some of the best I've had but my issue is the portions are just too much. Yes, you pay a lot but a small portion is enough two and medium and large portions could feed four and above. It's too much and it's not needed. My only other gripe is the price. You are looking at the guts of £40 if you have two burgers, large fries and shakes. That's a lot for what you get and, compared to one franchise less than fifty metres down the road, isn't really worth it. That's gastropub prices not fast food prices and Five Guys do not offer anything that's overly different from its competitors because they do great burgers too. But, if you want a glorified Golden Gates experience then Five Guys is where...

Living in Manchester I've heard great things about Five guys, so when I went home for the holidays and my friends fancied a casual quick dinner I suggested we try out the newly opened one in Glasgow. Let's start with the good points - the burgers were absolutely delicious, and the cajun fries were fantastic. Now for the bad points - the queue was very long, however service was quick. After placing your order you are given a ticket and wait for you order to be called out, this is all fine and in theory it gives you enough time to collect your drinks. This is however the next bad point, while it is impressive that you can choose one of something like 200 different drinks combinations, this leads to a very long wait time in a crowded area when all I was looking for was a diet coke with a little bit of ice. Next on to the orders being called. This was intense and just a little scary. The woman calling out the orders must go home unable to speak at night with the force that she shouts (repeatedly) your order number. This would all be well and good, if you weren't still waiting in the drinks queue. Upon sheepishly collecting our orders and feeling like scalded school children being late we took a seat in the booths downstairs opened our foil wrapped burgers and were initially excited, which faded to disappointment when we realised that somehow our burgers were a miss mash of both of our orders, we did decide not to bother going back with them and just eat them, and they were delicious.

Overall I really enjoyed the food at five guys, however the overall experience really...

I had a Little Cheeseburger, which was still fairly large, around the size of a Whopper from Burger King and I had pickles and BBQ sauce with it.

It was £5.50 which wasn't cheap compared to the ordinary chains and comparable with many of the 'diner' upmarket burger places in terms of like for like.

The store is terribly basic and even Burger King and McDonalds have nicer environments compared to the basic seating in Five Guys and Ed's Easy Diner and Handmade Burger Co are on different planets.

There is a terribly stripped down feeling about the place and while the food is good, the prices probably are high considering the virtually non existant furnishings and bland look of the actual store. Everything is served in nondescript brown bags and there was blaring music that made me wait very close to the counter for my order to be called.

I'm happy enough with the stripped down menu as the choice of toppings is good and allows a massive amount of customisation. Going into a store that looks like East Germany's first fast food outlet to buy burgers that are 'gourmet' in terms of cost seems like a terrible contradiction. It probably isn't a surprise that I decided not to sit in and walked out with my burger.

I don't think the incredible sparse restaurants will be a massive hit with UK diners, although the food still means I must give the store a good review overall but it would have been a shining review IF the prices were lower or the in store environment looked more like 21st century Glasgow and not 1980s...