Five Guys has been my favorite of the gourmet burger joints since the day it changed my life back in 2005. We were on our way up to our new post-Katrina temporary home in Bethesda, and discovered Five Guys in a strip mall on Dale Earnhardt Parkway in North Carolina. Five Guys had already taken DC by storm a few years earlier, and it was spreading out.
I hadn’t had a burger experience like this since someone brought McDonald’s to our swim club back in 1970. This was revolutionary. A burger and fries in a bag to eat anywhere!
My reaction that day in North Carolina was similar. A burger like this? With house-cut fries??? This place was a game-changer not only for my burger habits but for the entire industry. This “fast food” experience was on a different level than anything seen before. And it was still fast food. With peanuts while you waited!
I watched the spread of Five Guys with keen interest for years after we returned here. I drove to get Five Guys in Biloxi, then in Baton Rouge before it finally landed here. I was thrilled when we got one on Covington, though I rarely eat it now. It is still as consistent as the one that day in NC, but I just don’t each many fast food burgers.
What made Five Guys so revolutionary is the quality of everything they serve. People were happy to pay double the going rate for fast food hamburgers and fries because it was all so fresh, and they were serving top-quality Idaho potatoes cut right there. They made a little gimmick about posting each day where your potatoes came from in Idaho.
But they didn’t need gimmicks because it was all so superior to anything else. There were jokes about the fries being a “heart attack in a sack,” but they sure sold a lot of them. I was never deterred by the greasy brown bag filled with meaty bendable sticks of greasy fries covered in Creole seasoning. I dumped the paper cup of fries into the bag and closed the end, slitting the side of the bag and eating them as a gigantic bowl of fries. Glorious fries!
One day in Metairie as we hovered around Lakeside, I noticed something about the area. It is a burger hub. Within a two-mile radius, there are an astonishing number of fast-food burger options. This observation so intrigued me, that I decided to do a burger crawl.
There is our regional Bud’s Broiler across from Lakeside tucked under the overpass. On Severn are Five Guys and the most recent addition to the scene, Shake Shack, which arrived a year or two before COVID. I remember the day it opened. Lines stretched around the block, and parking was a hopeless proposition.
I was surprised so many people had heard of Shake Shack. It’s a New York-based operation, and a hip media darling, at least in the beginning. By the time they arrived in town, people were primed to welcome them.
The others featured in this piece have been here a while. Our two local operations have been success stories for many years before the out-of-towners arrived. Besides Bud’s, there is Lee’s, on Veteran’s Highway a mere block from Severn.
The day I set out to taste all the burgers together didn’t go as planned. I had Tom with me and he wasn’t interested in waiting for burgers. I’ve never paid attention to the wait for burgers, but this level of “gourmet” burger is not really fast food. We only made it to Five Guys on Severn and Shake Shack down the street. I ordered at Five Guys and drove to Shake Shack, waiting there for the burger. Then I went back to Five Guys to pick it up.
I got the Shack Burger double stack and fries. When I got back to the car it had started to rain. I took pictures of the burger on the dashboard and had a few bites. Shake Shack is a good burger. They use grass-fed beef in two thin patties, with melted American cheese between. There was a thick slice of red tomato on this burger and lots of shredded lettuce and pickles.
The fries were ordinary but crispy crinkle-cut fries. I have always wondered how they get away with serving frozen fries at a burger place so celebrated, but it has always been thus. These fries are not as good as Cane’s.
On a later visit to finish this project, I started at Bud's, a beloved local icon. Bud’s Broiler dates back to the 1950s when Bud Saunders opened a place on Airline Highway at Turnbull. Burgers were cooked over an open flame and eaten at tables etched with the names of past customers. Another characteristic of the chain is unusual buildings for some locations.
Burgers are cooked to order, so they aren't technically fast food. Each burger is grilled over charcoal, and topped with grated cheddar and fresh dressings. Fries are ordinary frozen fries. Drinks have crushed ice, a very desirable characteristic not seen everywhere. Bud’s has many loyalists, and the place is filled with them every time we enter.
Tom has always been obsessed with Bud’s, and I never understood why. The burger seemed ordinary, the fries certainly so, and the place too scruffy for me. When I was growing up the tepee one in Kenner was our local Bud’s, and the coolness of the unique place gave it added cache for me.
To be fair, the charcoal flame flavor and freshly grated cheddar combine with the dressings and fresh onion to make a tasty bite. I can see that all these elements plus the unique atmosphere of the building and tables add something special to any burger experience. On the downside, I’ve found the parsed-out menu annoying when ordering. Tom used it to pick at the poor workers by trying to trip them up with the numbering of the choices. I just go in and give my order and let them assign it a number.
After waiting a long time with a lot of other people, I got the burger and fries, and I have to admit it was good. With the crushed-ice soft drink, it can satisfy that burger craving.
I drove into the most treacherous drive-thru I’ve ever seen at Lee’s Hamburgers on Veterans. It was surprisingly fast getting the burger and fries. This was typical of the mid-twentieth century burger chains which really were fast but not as good as these 21st-century gourmet chains.
Lee’s Hamburgers claims to have been around since 1901, which is only 6 years later than the original claim of the burger’s invention at Louis’s Lunch in New Haven Connecticut. The signature trait at Lee's is chopped onions pressed into the burger and grilled. I’ve never been a fan of this, so trips to Lee’s have been for me sporadic at best. But I have been told even by Tom that Lee’s burgers can be very good.
To eat Lee's burger, I drove through the most intimidating drive-thru I have ever encountered, on Veteran’s Hwy. It’s a little hill you drive up, so the term drive-up does literally apply here. You have to position the car exactly right to make it through this without incident.
Lee’s fast food is actually fast, and I had my order in no time. Ordinary fries came with it. The burger looked really appealing to the eye, with juices dripping from the whole. Dressings were visible between the buns, and I couldn’t wait to try it.
It was very disappointing, maybe because the visual increased my expectations so much that it had to be a letdown. This burger and fries combo didn't register much taste at all with me. I couldn’t even sense the signature grilled onion in all this. And the fries were so insignificant as to be, well, insignificant.
A little further down the road is Atomic Burger, a place that’s been around maybe ten years now. It is the creation of Joe Spitale, one of the members of the Spitale family of Spitale’s Deli fame. His idea was to do fast food in a very upscale way, using fresh grass-fed beef and fresh-cut fries. Additionally, they offer six housemade sauces for dipping the fries. It was the most infuriating drive-thru, also intimidating, because the exit is the same as the entrance, and on Veterans Highway that can be dangerous.
Atomic instantly shot up to my favorite, because of the reasons mentioned above, but they also offered a small burger, a slider, which I always prefer. And all of this goodness was fast, somehow.
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All of that has changed. My last two visits there have been a glacial drive through the line, and food that is about 30% less good than I remember on previous visits. Something major has changed here, and not for the better.
I know that they have relocated to Baton Rouge and are increasing their footprint there with two locations and counting. Whatever the reason, I have cooled on Atomic Burger, and that makes me sad. For this piece, I did drive through again just to see if my other recent impressions were anomalies. We spent over 30 minutes in the line and had the same experience.
Mooyah, still further down the highway, is doing the same thing as Five Guys, and for that reason remains off my radar. Both of these two are not officially included in this piece because they are too far from the epicenter of the Burger Hub as outlined in the beginning.
I needed more pics of Five Guys because the Severn location is subpar to the one in Covington, and the fries were unrecognizable. It was a good excuse to revisit my favorite burger place.
I got the peanuts and enjoyed those but didn't finish them because the wait was so brief.
There was an army of fresh-faced employees preparing my food. It was exactly the same as the first bite of Five Guys I had in North Carolina on that fateful day. I ordered a double patty burger with small fries and the largest drink. In North Carolina that day in 2005, the total for that came to under $10, and that was considered expensive then. Today the bill totaled $18 something, plus a dollar for a tip because that’s different now too. This little lunch came to a few cents under $20, and for that price, a “fast food” burger meal had better be good, huh?
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And they are. Just like real restaurants, some are better than others but all can deliver a satisfying meal. To my taste, I’d rate burger joints in the Metairie ‘Burger Hub” with Five Guys at the top, followed by Shake Shack, then Bud’s Broiler ahead of Lee’s.
Each of them has their individual characteristics. And in that corner of Metairie, if you need a burger and don’t see your favorite, another choice is not far away.
