Five Guys & 25,000 of My Closest Friends

As a “burger and fry guy,” there’s nothing like that meal before joining thousands of your closest college football friends on the opening Saturday of a new season. And when that means a pre-game stop at one of my favorite burger joints –Five Guys – man oh man, just BRING IT!

He said: One thing I love about Five Guys is you can start eating without even paying for it. Standing in line to order, I scooped up a handful of peanuts and started cracking shells. Once at the counter, I went with my go-to: a (really not so) little cheeseburger loaded with extra pickles, BBQ sauce, ketchup, mustard, grilled mushrooms and grilled onions, regular fries and a cup of water. Normally, I’d go for a peanut butter shake to boot but given that it was already 80+ degrees outside and we expected temperatures in the mid-90s for game day, I wanted to get a head start on hydrating.

I love me a napkin-a-bite burger, and Five Guys always delivers. After each bite of my burger, I had to use a napkin to clean up from the tasty juiciness. And then there’s the fries! There’s nobody that does fries like Five Guys. There’s a certain nationwide chain that offers “bottomless fries,” but let’s face it, Five Guys’ fries just keep going and going. Not only did my cup of fries runneth over, but there were probably four to five times that amount in the oversized brown lunch bag that came with the meal. I should’ve had a ruler with me to measure the depth of the fries. We had an additional bonus on this day. The fries were from Carl Taylor Farms in Idaho Falls, Idaho, the birthplace of my oldest grandson, who was with me.

Since it was game day and I had four-plus hours of football viewing in the stadium, I polished off my burger and downed each and every morsel of French fry yumminess.   

She said: (chose a quiet down day over the game)

By the way…Five Guys is a family affair in the truest sense of the term. In the mid-1980s, Jerry and Janie Murrell told their four sons, “Start a business or go to college.” They chose the business route, serving only hand-formed burgers cooked to perfection on a grill along with fresh, hand-cut fries cooked in pure peanut oil. It’s also worth nothing Five Guys only uses fresh ground beef and there are no freezers, just coolers, in each location.

The first joint opened in 1986 in Washington DC and then, following the birth of brother number-five, expanded to four more by 2001. In 2003, Five Guys started selling franchises and today there are more than 1,700 around the world.

With our food cravings slayed, the six of us waddled our way to campus. The University of Montana Grizzlies, known to locals at the Griz, are a Division I FCS or football championship series (think old 1-AA division) program. They won national championships in 1995 and 2001, qualified for 17 consecutive playoffs from 1993-2009 and had an unprecedented streak of 25 straight winning seasons from 1986-2011.

With my granddaughter, and Griz fan, Lyla

As a guy who spent almost a decade and a half in a past life as a television sportscaster, I’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of games in a lot of different places – Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, several bowl games including the Rose Bowl, Kansas State University, etc. Though smaller than their big brothers in the NFL and on the FBS level, Washington-Grizzly Stadium and its capacity of 25,203 has a great, rockin’ atmosphere. The fans are knowledgeable. They know when to be quiet for the offense and they know when to get LOUD. We say in the north endzone known as “North Endzone Crazies.” Many a time, while in full throat, we make so much noise the opposing offense can’t hear, is out of sync and is called for false start penalties.  

On this particular game, the Griz jumped out to an early lead and never looked back on the way to a 47-0 drubbing of visiting Northwestern State. A satisfying win. A satisfying way to start the new season. And a satisfying way to cap a satisfying day that started with a satisfying burger and fries with a side of peanuts at Five Guys.