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Five Guys Story

Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell's mother always told him...

"If you can give a good haircut or if you can serve a good drink at a bar or if you can serve a good hamburger, you can always make money in America."

Timeline

At Five Guys, we’ve stuck to our ‘perfect and serve’ philosophy since our family business began in Arlington, Virginia way back in 1986, when Jerry and Janie Murrell offered sage advice to their young sons...

“Start a business or go to college”

The business route won and the Murrell family opened their first burger joint named, simply, Five Guys – after the five brothers.

Since then, we’ve grown to almost 1500 locations spanning the United States, Canada, Europe and the Middle East.

We first launched in the UK in 2013 and here's a taste of what we've been up to over the years!

  1. 1986
  2. 1986 - 2001
  3. 2002
  4. 2003
  5. 2013
  6. 2014
  7. 2015
  8. 2016
  9. 2017
  10. 2018
  11. 2019
  12. 2020
  13. 2021

  • 1986

    We opened the first Five Guys restaurant in Arlington, VA.

  • 1986 - 2001

    We opened five more restaurants around the D.C. metro area and perfected our business of making burgers, leading to the cult-like following we have today.

  • 2002

    We decided that D.C. metro-area residents shouldn't be the only ones to experience our burgers and began to franchise in Virginia and Maryland.

  • 2003

    We sold out of franchise territory after just 18 months and decided to open up the rest of the US to franchising… and take on the rest of the world, too.

  • 2013

    We opened our first UK restaurant in Covent Garden in July 2013, expanded into Reading and Islington, and won the ZAGAT No1 Burger and Peach Newcomer awards.

  • 2014

    We opened 16 more restaurants in 2014 including Bluewater, Manchester, Trafford Centre, Birmingham, Bullring, and Oxford Street, and we got our hands on the Peach Breakthrough award.

  • 2015

    We opened 21 new UK restaurants, held our first Voice and AM Meetings, our first UK Conference, and the inaugural Five Guys Olympics, and we picked up awards from MAPIC Food Retail Concept, Virgin One to Watch, Peach Best Quality, and Coolbrands Top 100.

  • 2016

    We opened more restaurants across the UK, held our second UK conference and second Five Guys Olympics, and landed an award from RLI Food and Hospitality.

  • 2017

    We continued to expand, opening another 20 restaurants in the UK including Piccadilly Circus, Westfield Stratford and two more in Edinburgh. Landed ourselves in 8th place in The Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 league table.

  • 2018

    Another 10 openings in the UK, as well as expansion across France, Spain and Germany – including Gare Du Nord, Munich and Barcelona.

  • 2019

    We opened 14 new Five Guys in the UK in 2019 and it was all down to our awesome people! St Paul's was our 100th opening, to celebrate with our customers we served perfect burgers and fries all day - on us!

  • 2020

    2020 was a year like no other and despite the pandemic we are incredibly proud that we managed to retain all of our staff and continued to see record sales in some of our restaurants! In true Five Guys ‘get it done’ style we opened 10 new restaurants in the UK and that was all down to the determination of our people!

  • 2021

    This year is gearing up to be one of our biggest yet, with 25 new openings planned across the UK. The Five Guys family is continuing to grow with more people made of the right stuff, watch this space for more to come!