Matthew D’Annolfo / Special to The Recorder
Don’t be ashamed to admit that the best restaurant you’ve been to in years, wraps the food in tinfoil, serves it in a brown paper bag and allows you to stand up and eat circus peanuts while waiting for your order.
This of course is Five Guys Burgers and Fries, a good old-fashioned burger joint that packs in the quantity, and never skips on the quality.
When you walk into any Five Guys Burgers and Fries location you won’t be impressed by the décor, but then again, if you’ve come to Five Guys for the ambiance, you’re in the wrong place.
While you probably won’t be impressed by the industrial sized sacks of potatoes stacked in the corners, or the red and white tiled walls, your senses will be aroused by the time you reach the counter to order.
The smell of fresh sizzling burger patties and French-fries will fill you with the excitement you felt before eating the perfect burger as a kid.
Although the official Five Guys Web site reports an astounding 250,000 possible ways to order a burger at the restaurant, the process is always easy, moderately priced and catered to the customer. There are two kinds of burgers; little and regular. The $3.39 “single” burger is one succulent, fresh beef patty on a warm toasted bun while the $5.89 “regular” burger is two juicy slabs of beef.
After ordering the burger size, customers can choose up to sixteen different, free toppings. After completing your made to order burger, you have your choice of two different sizes of fries; regular ($2.69) and large ($3.89). The fries may be on the pricey side, but you most definitely get your money’s worth. As a point of reference, a regular sized fry is usually enough to split between you and a friend.
After your burger is crafted into a work of art, it is wrapped tightly in tinfoil, locking in the plethora of flavors you are about to experience. The burger and fries are then placed into a large brown paper bag, to which an additional cup of fries is showered directly into (a Five Guy’s signature).
When the process is complete, a burger chef will shout your order number out like burger joint of the past.
By the time you walk from the counter to your table, and open your brown paper bag of deliciousness, you will be ready to experience something new, yet nostalgic.
The first bite into your flavor packed hamburger will remove you from a world swamped with paper-thin fast food burgers and over priced trendy restaurants. Instead it returns you to a time when you were excited to get a hamburger, because it was delicious, juicy and just the way you liked it.
Five Guys Burgers and Fries is located at 278 Scott Swamp Rd., Farmington, Conn. Five Guys are open everyday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
