Friday, February 4, 2011

Guest Post by Joy Erickson

Five Guys Burgers and Fries may sound pretty scary for a vegan or vegetarian.  My friend Joy is here to tell you otherwise.  She has been vegetarian for many years.  She is an avid runner, animal activist and blogger.


This is Joy

  You can read her blog called "Yes Charleston...there is a blog" by clicking here.  En-JOY her vegetarian find at Five Guys!...



Five Guys:  By Joy Erickson

After being completely convinced that this place was completely focused on providing meat products and such, I went in with much hesitation. I only had intentions on purchasing fries. However, after walking in and learning of the cheese vegetable sandwich (and also just vegetable sandwich), I quickly learned they had the pleasure of serving all kinds of eaters.

 The sandwich was spectacular. Grilled mushrooms (separately from the cow), lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and onions mixed with a nice cheddar cheese sqooshed in between the nice sesame seed bun...it was truly heaven in my mouth. In addition, the potatoes used to make the homemade fries were nicely labeled on a blackboard in the restaurant. Needless, to say..I was very pleased and will frequent five guys over and over.

24 comments:

  1. oh man you're blowin up, Joy! I need to try this sandwich you've been raving about!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Uh... I had this sandwich last night based on your blog post, and it's really not good. It was like burger toppings on a roll. So if you like iceberg lettuce, a slice of tomato, about 10 slices of sauteed mushrooms and a few teaspoons of sauteed onion, dripping with mayo, rock on. But this non-meat-eater was really unhappy!

    Michele

    ReplyDelete
  3. They crab about eating meat and they crab about not eating meat. Sheesh.....Just no pleasing some people.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Isn't cheese an animal product?

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a VEGETARIAN option! **It was noted for Vegan, have it sans cheese! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Burger toppings on a roll I've had. Don't want it, thanks. A veggie burger would be nice! There are so many frozen ones available and a burger joint like 5 Guys could have one of "The Guys" either making a veggie burger or thawing a frozen one. The Veggie Max at Subway is pretty good. Even Burger King has a veggie burger available.
    I'm meeting some friends at 5 Guys and will eat before or after I hang out with them. (Lunchtime is about more than food...)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Iceberg is not a 'vegetarian option.' It's a garnish. Now, I have no problem with Five Guys saying upfront, 'vegetarians, we have nothing for you.' If that's a good business choice for them, then they should operate that way. But what Five Guys should NOT do is link to this blog as some sort of evidence that they can please people who don't eat meat. They can't, end of story.
    Oh, and even without cheese it's NOT vegan, unless you ask them not to coat it in mayo.

    Michele

    ReplyDelete
  8. It is a VEGETARIAN OPTION. You do not have to eat there, but it is definately good to know in case you find yourself at Five Guys. It does please some vegetarians apparently!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Five Guys, by my house anyway, offers a grilled cheese sandwich (obviously not Vegan, but a Veggie pleaser!), a veggie burger (grilled away from the cow), and also the sandwich mentioned here piled extremely high with veggies and they're all great and super filling.

    I'm sorry you had a bad experience, Michele, I've had nothing but greatness from Five Guys.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is a great restaurant for meat eaters. I would love to go there w/ my friends who have to go to restaurants that suit me. Why not offer a vegan option (vegetarian w/ cheese) like the Sunshine Burger. It is delicious. I think it would really add to Five Guys without taking anything away.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'd recommend asking for the grilled cheese "with toppings".... then choose whatever toppings sound good and leave those that don't appeal to you. Nice hot grilled cheese piled with tasty veggies (added after the grilled cheese is grilled, so as not to get hot/soggy) :-) I actually prefer it by quite a bit over the veggie burger at BK! And while I certainly wouldn't complain if Five Guys decided to offer a veggie burger, I'm quite happy with an occasional Five Guys grilled cheese!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow, where to start? It IS burger toppings on a bun, thats how it was described. They only have American cheese, not cheddar, and again, cheese is not vegan. Mayo, however, has no animal products in it, either way, you let them know what you want on it. If you don't want mayo, don't ask for it.
    And finally, the mushrooms and onions, while warmed up on the bread grill, are cooked beforehand... on the meat grill.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Just an FYI for the person who thinks mayonnaise doesn't have animal products in it: regular mayo is made with eggs which come from a chicken's cloaca. :) Learning is fun!

    The veg option doesn't sound very good (so many vegans get stuck with only a mushroom option - ick! imo) but if they offered a veggie burger, I'd be all over it! :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. I am not a vegetarian but I do LOVE the grilled cheese here.. and the fries are really, really good as well. I don't recommend this place if you are watching your calories, but otherwise, highly recommend for a splurge.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Cows eat, procreate,and defend their calves against and are smarter than some humans.Wolves,cougars,bears, and the little black hopping buzzards the goverment turn loose give them a hard time. They are treated good and if there was no market there would be only pet and hobby cows.They can also chase an auctioneer from the sales barn.

    ReplyDelete
  16. According to the Five Guys website, their buns contain dairy and egg, therefore not vegan. :( Let's inundate them with requests for a vegan bun AND a vegan burger!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hey! How about you let them sell what they want and go elsewhere if you wish to gnaw on the lawn?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Whine, whine, whine. This is a near-perfect example of why veganism/vegetarianism is laughed at by most, as a fad composed of ignorance, often even hypocritical. It's NOT your choice of eating-style ... most everyone could care less if you have decided to eat only plants, plants & "land-locked" meat, fish, seafood, completely lab-developed artificial chemicals, or nothing at all. No, the humour is a direct result of the attitudes, actions, & beliefs of the Veggie-Cults.

    LOOK at the NAME people, straight from their own web-site .... "Five Guys Burgers and Fries". The GREAT majority of the world's population who knows what a "Burger" is (probably 90% or better of us) will automatically KNOW that "burger" almost ALWAYS means "MEAT"!

    As already pointed out, often by NON-veggie people, the hard-core Vegans/Vegetarians are quite often even ignorant of what exactly DOES constitute a true veggie-dish. And if you want to get REAL technical about it, most likely animals STILL died for your beloved non-animal-based foods. Maybe a tractor which was harvesting your tomato squished a rabbit, squirting it's DNA all over your "veggie" dinner, which most likely still has a tiny trace of said animal stuff left on it, since burger-tomatos are very rarely cooked, only lightly rinsed under cold water.

    If you don't like the fact that a "BURGER" joint doesn't specifically cater to non-meat eaters ..... DON'T EAT THERE!! Then you won't have to gripe about the fact that you couldn't locate a soy-based patty in a hamburger restaurant. I bet it's safe to say that when we who eat vegetables AND meat are yearning for a half-pound of prime Angus .... we are intelligent enough to NOT try to find that at Valerie's All-Vegetable Snack-Shack. And I bet you'll NEVER see a meat eater complain that Valerie doesn't cook beef.

    Know why? Because meat eaters are intelligent enough to go to a place which DOES have meat on the menu.

    Grow up people .... quit making your IQ appear to be smaller than your shoe size.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This post was really necessary. God damn, thanks.

      Delete
  19. ...perhaps if they determine that there is demand, and they do make a point that their fries are suitable for vegan diets, they would expand their menu to accommodate the broader market. It's good to see an intelligent conversation on the subject, with a notable few exceptions.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Your blog provided us with valuable information to work with. Each & every tips of your post are awesome. Thanks a lot for sharing. Keep blogging, healthy vegan recipes

    ReplyDelete