Hrm, I don't know about these five guys. Ive talked to A LOT of people who were pretty excited about it, so my expectations were kind of high.I really *wanted* to like the place.
Came at what I would assume to be a peak time (Sunday lunch hour). Place was open and had a lot of room, and it was loud. Which, whatever, good place if you want to take the kids or something. Order process was pretty straightforward, and the staff was very friendly.
Grabbed the ticket and we found a table. Went to go get my drink filled up, and apparently the fountain drink system is computerized. Talk about overwhelming, you will be there for a few seconds reading it all the first time. Hit the coke zero button, and another menu came up with all these different subflavors of coke zero. Aye yi yi. Filled my drink, and checked; pretty much every kind of drink has flavoring options. Except for water. What if I wanted vanilla flavored water :) Anyway.. Went back to the table and took a sip.
Now.. The concept of customized pop is cool. I'm sure kids love it, and I imagine many adults do too. My gripe however is a nitpicky thing, but it is what it is. When I go to buy a vanilla Coke Zero, I expect a very specific taste, one that was developed by well paid flavor nerds in a lab somewhere. Something that is always consistent and has all the subtle flavors of a real vanilla Coke Zero. Well... this did not taste the same. Close, and definitely as refreshing as pop gets, but there was brief second right after it touched my lips I was disappointed thinking "hrmm".
http://www.slashfood.com/2010/05/10/cokes-new-machine-gives-you-104-flavors/
Speaking of the pop machine.. The place looked very clean overall, and I saw staff wiping down the pop machine, great. But they were only wiping down the inside.. The grubbiest place on that machine is the screen by far with everyone touching it. I'm not a germophobe by any means. I don't know how it is in the ladies' room, but.. In the men's room, based on my observation (regardless of crowd or venue), only ~3/4 of them wash their hands after the bathroom.
The burger. Kind of a bummer. Picture of what we opened up. Wonderbread roll, 'merican cheese, gray burger. They forgot our bacon too, but we noticed too late, didn't want to show up at the counter with 1/4 burger complaining :) I really don't know what else to say about it. Food in the mouth and move on I guess. The fries were a bummer for me too. That's awesome they are using fresh potatoes, and the Cajun seasoning is good. Maybe because it was the lunch rush, but the fries were a bit too limp and greasy for my taste. I don't know, the oil was clean, but its like the frier was not hot enough - maybe because it was busy the recovery time of the frier was too slow. I like fresh cut fries to have a little crisp on the outside, and light and fluffy inside. Not heavy and oily.
I don't see the value in it and will not return. Maybe if you just wanted to take the kids out for a quick lunch or something the experience may be different.While there was nothing seriously wrong with the place, there was nothing seriously right with the place either. Perhaps they were a little too over-hyped to to me and set my expectations too high? read more