The Five Guys Company (Essay Sample)

The Five Guys Company
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
The Five Guys Company
Five Guys burgers is a food restaurant based in the United States that has been renowned for producing the best burgers and fries. The chain of restaurants started from an idea by Janie and Jerry Murrell who offered the four Murrell brothers of starting a business or going to college in 1986. The brothers decided to open a business where they opened their first joint in Arlington, Virginia (Burke, 2012). Jerry and Janie guided them on serving hand- formed burgers that they cooked on a grill with fresh- cut fries cooked using peanut oil only. Within a short time, their burgers were voted the best in the area, and this attracted the attention of the press. Demand for the burgers and fries grew, and this prompted them to open four other restaurants between 1990 and 1990. In 2002, they established franchises in the whole of Virginia and Maryland and later opened franchise rights to other parts of the country. Currently, the Five Guys have expanded to more than 1000 locations in 6 Canadian provinces and 47 states (Burke, 2012).
The company’s growth can be explained by their unique style of preparing their burgers. First, the company only uses fresh ground beef for the preparation of the burgers. This gives the burgers a fresh taste when ready. In addition, no locations of Five Guys have freezers as other restaurants do. They just have coolers to keep the burgers cool and not preserve them. Preserved burgers give another taste, and hence, the company ensures that its burgers are not frozen. Also, the company only uses peanut oil, which is natural and pure. There are no additives and chemicals to make the burgers tastier, as they may be allergic to other customers. The company also ensures that the juicy burgers have a wide variety of toppings so that the customers are given a chance to choose their favorite choice. It has also created choices in ways to order a burger in order to suit the specifications of their customers. For this reason, most customers find the restaurant as the ideal place for their burgers, and consequently, this increases the sales of the company. The whole chain, inclusive of all franchise sales, surpassed a revenue of $1 billion in 2012, and this was an increase from $950 million in 2011 (Burke, 2012).
Being a family business, each of the seven members of the Murrell Family own equal shares of the Five Guys Company, which constitute 75% of the total shares. 20% of the shares is owned by Miller Investments, a boutique in Philadelphia and 5% are owned by some of the school buddies of the Murrells. The company, which cost less than $70,000, as the initial investment, now returns about $375 million (Burke, 2...