At Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries, the emphasis is very clear: simple, fresh food prepared fast and served at affordable prices.
Coastal Point • M. PATRICIA TITUS:
The crew at Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries. From left, Jim Dudine, Mike Dennis, Jane Dudine, Lon Lewis and Jason Sadler.
Those were all the selling points needed for Jim and Jane Dudine when they considered what they might like to do with their “retirement” years in the Bethany Beach area. The couple, originally from Alexandria, Va., moved full-time to their home in Middlesex Beach in 2002. The decision was then whether to really retire or to find something else to do with their time. The latter won out.
And when they considered what kind of business they might like to get involved in, they asked themselves a smart business question: What was the Bethany Beach area missing that it could really use? The answer for them was the great burgers and fries they enjoyed at Five Guys while living in Alexandria. (“We eat too much of them now, as our waistlines will attest to,” said Jane Dudine.)
That was a doubly easy answer for the Dudines, because they knew the founders of the original restaurant (their children attended preschool together), and even though they weren’t sure a franchise would be available, they thought they might be able to convince their friends to let them open their own Five Guys on the Delaware shore.
As luck would have it, Five Guys was just starting to offer franchises at that time; and even though Delaware hadn’t been on the list of intended expansions areas, the Dudines convinced their friends they could make a go of it.
So, in August 2004 (slightly delayed due to permitting issues), they opened the first Five Guys restaurant in Delaware, right on the main drag at 111 Garfield Parkway in Bethany Beach.
The delayed opening gave them “a taste” of the customer traffic they might expect during the summer, Jim Dudine said, and the business was popular enough throughout the late summer and fall that it was an easy decision to stay open year-round.
What draws the customers to Five Guys is the same quality food that made the Dudines regular customers in Virginia.
The chief slogan in the restaurant is: “Always fresh. Never frozen.” That goes not just for the 100-percent American beef used in the classic-style hamburgers, but in everything from the french fries to the burger toppings to the fresh buns shipped in via UPS from the Lorton, Va., bakery that supplies all the Five Guys restaurants.
In fact, there is no freezer in the Bethany Beach shop, just a large walk-in refrigerator where the fresh produce and meats are stored briefly until they become someone’s meal.
Fresh Idaho potatoes arrive on a regular basis. (The origin of the tubers in each day’s batch is posted on a board in the restaurant, just in case you’re curious.) Each morning, Jim Dudine said, large batches of potatoes are peeled and cut into fry-size sticks, then soaked in water to remove some of the starch and get the best result.
They’re fried throughout the day, in 100-percent peanut oil, steaming hot, crispy and available in a “classic” salted Five Guys style or with a Cajun seasoning. Malt vinegar is available right on the counter for those who are so inclined. And it’s easy to apply, since the fries are served in cups and dropped — overflowing — into the plain brown-paper bags that are Five Guys’ only serving mechanisms.
That’s right — eat in or eat out, there are no plates here, not paper, plastic or ceramic.
Manager Jason Sadler said that’s a big part of the appeal of the restaurant: its pure casual, laid-back style. Customers come in, place their orders and wait five to 10 minutes for their food to be cooked fresh to order and handed over the counter.
(In fact, that little bit of waiting time led the original Five Guys owners to offer fresh peanuts in the shell, to give customers something to snack on while they waited for their order. The Bethany Beach Five Guys continues that tradition.)
Within minutes, it’s a fresh, juicy burger topped with as many fresh toppings as the customer desires, or a kosher hot dog topped with cheese, all wrapped in foil to keep it piping hot — and nearly always popped into that brown-paper bag with the overflowing side of fries.
(For the meat-free, Five Guys offers a toasty grilled cheese or veggie sandwich, cooked on their own foil sheets; and the fries are, naturally, free of the meat-based flavorings some of the fast-food giants still use on their frozen fries.)
Sadler said the most popular selection at the Five Guys location in Bethany Beach is the bacon cheeseburger. Like all of the Five Guys “classic” burgers, that’s two fresh, handmade beef patties, in this case topped with cheese and bacon. Sadler said, “People like the big burgers. The smaller burgers usually go to the seniors and kids.”
Those big burgers please the appetites of some of the restaurant’s most common wintertime customers: construction workers pleased to find the burger place open for lunch during the off-season, as well as the employees of downtown Bethany businesses, who might otherwise be hard-pressed for fresh, inexpensive lunch options.
That, Jim Dudine said, was a conscious choice. They wanted to stay open year-round, and they suspected that with so many other restaurants closed during the week they’d have a built-in clientele. “During the week, we’re it,” he said. They’ve been proven right about how well that would pay off for them, even with the occasional slow weekday.
The restaurant does a booming business on weekends, and even this week’s run of high temperatures in the teens and 20s didn’t deter hungry lunchtime customers from making the trek out for a burger or hot dog at Five Guys. (In fact, the restaurant was so swamped with customers Monday, Jim Dudine said, that he and his wife had to come over and pitch in.)
Jim Dudine said that along with the food, he credits his employees for the restaurant’s success. A loyal staff of cooks mans the grills and fryers, and serves the customers; and Sadler said they’ve already lined up several of the international students who worked with them at the end of the summer to come back in 2005.
The Five Guys reputation also goes a long way toward selling the restaurant for new customers. Quotes from reviews raving about the quality of the food appear along the walls. The restaurant has been a top pick among burger joints in the Washington, D.C. area for more than five years.
And now the Bethany Beach Five Guys is taking aim at claiming similar fame in Delaware. They’re targeting the people’s choice picks in the annual Delaware Today magazine poll of food establishments, hoping to take the Southern Delaware title and preferably become the state-wide pick.
The customer comment cards that are also displayed on the restaurant’s walls are a good indicator that they’ve got a shot at the honor. And Sadler and the Dudines pride themselves on keeping customer loyalty with good food once newcomers discover the restaurant. Word had even spread as far as Salisbury, Jane Dudine said.
She noted she’s particularly focused on the value of her business’ meals. With a family, she said, restaurant meals can become outrageously expensive. But with a price under $7 for a fresh burger and big helping of fries, a family can eat out and still have the meal be affordable.
The Dudines and Sadler are confident about the restaurant’s ability to thrive in Delaware. They’re not only looking forward “eagerly” to the summer season but also planning for the coming expansion they’re allowed as the area’s sole franchisee for Five Guys. Next on the list to conquer is Ocean Pines, Md., followed by at least four more restaurants in Sussex County, starting with Rehoboth Beach.
The coming summertime rush is creating one concern for the Dudines, however. With limited storage space and already receiving six to eight large cartons of those fresh, signature Five Guys rolls from Virginia each day, Jim Dudine is concerned about where they’ll find room to store the large quantities of bread they’ll need to meet the demands of all those hungry beachgoers. But he’s confident they’ll sort it out.
The quality of the bread, he said, is the one big secret to Five Guys. The french fries, he admits, are created in a method similar to most of the beach-style restaurants in the area; but, he said, he’ll stack them up against the others anytime. Comparing the burgers to those from that place down the street with the clown mascot, however, might be a classic apples-and-oranges situation.
In the end, each of those involved with the Bethany Beach location of Five Guys said it’s the fresh, made-to-order food that sells the restaurant to its customers. “It’s a simple process, a good product, fresh and affordable,” Jane Dudine said. They’re counting on that reputation to grow as more full-time residents realize they’re open seven days a week, even in the winter.
Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries is open in Bethany Beach from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and until 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Sometime in late spring, Jim Dudine said, the restaurant will return to its full-time seasonal hours of 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., guaranteeing even late-night beachgoers their fix of fresh burgers and fries.