Anticipation could not truly express my feelings this morning when finally the day I have been waiting for had arrived with Five Guys opening it’s doors on Long Row in Nottingham. I have eaten at various Five Guy’s Burger Restaurant’s numerous times over the years mostly in Chicago while travelling up and down the Elevated Rail tracks hunting for food. As soon as I knew that a branch was coming to our fair city of Nottingham I had been all a quiver awaiting, dreaming of their burgers and basically salivating at the prospect.

Five Guys Menu

The menu at Five Guys is deceptively simple on the Burger Front, all you need to choose is whether to have a Hamburger, a Cheeseburger, a Bacon Burger, or a Bacon Cheeseburger. No fancy clever names are needed here, if you want to Jazz up your sandwich then you get to add as many toppings as you like from choices such as ‘mayo, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, ketchup and mustard’ to name just a few possibilities.

You have plenty of time to contemplate your choices as you stand in line waiting patiently to order. There were plenty of people in Nottingham eager to try the burgers on opening day. I had seen on twitter that they were queuing out of the door during the day and so as I headed there on the bus after work I thought that it would have quietened down. I was almost wrong, the end of the line that I joined was just outside the door on the pavement, perhaps just a couple less waiting. No-one seemed that bothered though having to wait as the line moved pretty quickly. If you wanted something to munch on while you waited you could help yourself to a scoop of monkey nuts in their shells (just like you can in every stateside Five Guys I had been too).

Bacon Cheeseburger

I played it really simple and just ordered my burger with cheese and bacon, there was to be no extra fluff on my burger this day. I will tell you that honestly you don’t need it here. The meat is so tasty that it doesn’t need ketchup or mustard to make it taste any better, in my mind they just get in the way. The bacon is so good, really crispy and chewy, just like you get in the states. The cheese is just a dream, a molten blanket laying in top of the burger patty. The sesame seeded bun is also just a simple affair lightly toasted on the inside it is a perfect holder for this sandwich.

A warning though on the size front, there are some American sized portions in play here, so a small fries is like a large fries, and a regular burger is actually two large burger patties. I imagine that they don’t expect some great big strapping lad to walk in and order a ‘little hamburger’ with some ‘little fries’. I was fully aware of the danger ahead but sauntered swiftly through that changing the word little to small when ordering my fries, but I still went for the regular burger size. Why go XL when regular already is? Love you guys.

There were a lot of fries, in fact there was a pot of fries in the bag, but there were at least as many again in the bottom of the bag. It was as though someone just thought they would give me another big scoopful as a bonus. The chips are excellent, cut fresh to order from the whole potato and fried in peanut oil. Several boards on the walls tell you were the potatoes had come from, ours where from Kroes Farm in Dronten in Holland.

I know that I will be back here again pretty soon, I will not be able to stay away. I know that these burgers are billed as Fast Food but they are cooked from never frozen meat and they can give many a so called gourmet burger on sale in the city a run for their money. Speaking of money it is not that cheap here. My Bacon Cheeseburger was £8.50, throw in some fries and a coke and you are staring down the barrel at the best part of £14. Having said that though this branch of Five Guys is in a perfect spot for foot traffic right in the midst of the Old Market Square and I have a feeling that it will do rather well here in it’s latest home.