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#37. The Substandard Rates Burgers!
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Dudes Chatting — burger chain rankings: Prompted by a Harris Poll top-ten burger chains list, the hosts debate what makes a great burger. Sonny makes the case for Five Guys over In-N-Out, arguing Five Guys wins on patty size and topping variety, and that In-N-Out's reputation is partly regional mythology. JVL pushes back with what he calls the "spiritual satisfaction test," suggesting that the experience of eating a great burger is more than a sum of its parts — he recommends BGR (The Burger Joint) and mentions a particular fondness for their veggie burger. Vic represents the Midwest contingent, championing Culver's. Historical context surfaces: White Castle's 1916 founding as the first modern burger chain, and Bob's Big Boy's invention of the double-stack patty in 1937. Wendy's is cited positively for its value proposition. No reviews or box office segment.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Welcome to Good Burger, home of TheGoodBurger, can I take your order? Two old beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun. Lettuce, cheese, cheese, pickles, onions, lettuce, cheese, pickles, oh, what am I saying?
Vic00:00:21Hello, and welcome to another micro-episode of TheSubstandard, sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of TheSubstandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. And Substandard show notes are posted by Jonathan Last every Friday at weeklystandard.com. A recent Harris poll has ranked America's top ten burgers. They are, at number ten, Steak and Shake, number nine, Smashburger, number eight, Sonic, America's Drive-In, seven is McDonald's, six, Whataburger. Five is Culver's, four, Wendy's, three is Shake Shack, two, In-N-Out Burger, and number one, Five Guys. Burgers, I think, are something that we here at TheSubstandard take very seriously. Yes. So, of course, we have our own rankings. Yeah. But first, your thoughts on the Harris poll, Sonny?
Sonny00:01:19I am glad that Five Guys finally triumphed over the Wicked and Evil In-N-Out Burger as the winner. My preferred burger brand of Americans, because Five Guys is, look, let's set aside the extras. Let's set aside french fries. Let's set aside milkshakes. Let's set aside all that. When you go to a burger place, you want a nice, big, juicy burger. And you know what you get at Five Guys? You get a nice, big, juicy burger. It's juicy, and it's meaty. It's like real. You know, In-N-Out's fine if you want, like, a fancy McDouble. If you want, like, a nice McDouble, then In-N-Out is the place to go. But you could get a triple, or you could get a four-pan, or whatever. It's fine.
JVL00:01:56Five patties.
Sonny00:01:57The point is, Five Guys is a number one. And I'm just going to throw this out there. The reason, the reason it's number one, in addition to having the big, juicy, meaty patties that you don't get at In-N-Out, is the quality of the toppings. The quality and the variety of the toppings. You know, you go to In-N-Out, and you get tomatoes and onions and whatever. They're disgusting sauce.
Vic00:02:20What are we getting at Five Guys?
Sonny00:02:21But at Five Guys, you can get, oh man, you get mayo, relish, onions, lettuce. Pickles, tomatoes, fried onions, sautéed mushrooms, ketchup, mustard, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, A1 sauce, barbecue sauce, and hot sauce. Now look, I don't get all that on there.
JVL00:02:38I don't get all that. But you know, I do get- Because it would taste like nothing.
Sonny00:02:41I do get delicious, delicious mushrooms and sautéed onions, and mayo, and ketchup, and mustard, and it's so good.
Vic00:02:50So if I go to Five Guys and say, I'll have the sunny bunch, they'll know what that is?
Sonny00:02:54Well, no, because there are hundreds. There are hundreds of Five Guys, because Five Guys is the biggest of the two chains, and therefore better. It's the biggest of these two chains, and therefore better. Now, this calculus changes a little bit later in the rankings, but you know.
Vic00:03:09I remember going to Five Guys when there was only one back in the 90s.
Sonny00:03:14I live like half a mile from where that is. I wish it was still there.
Vic00:03:18The only thing is, with a really good burger, and again, we're also not talking about price. We're talking about, is this a good burger, flat out. We'll get to that in a second. It's so good. There are certain burgers that are so good, that when you're done, you think to yourself, you know what, I could have another. Oh, yeah. But I think that would be dangerous.
Sonny00:03:33You would have a heart attack. I might. I mean, a one Five Guys burger is like 7,000 calories, is my understanding.
Vic00:03:39You're supposed to wait for like, say, you know, wait 10 minutes, but I can't. No, I just want to eat another one. It's the longest 10 minutes of my life. I'm sorry. JVL. JVL, go ahead.
JVL00:03:47Isn't that a part of the calculus and what makes it a good burger? If you finish a burger and you still need to eat another one, the burger isn't very good. No, no, no, no.
Sonny00:03:55If you want to eat another one.
JVL00:03:56You don't need to eat another one. No, you should feel sated. You don't need to eat another one. No, no, you should feel sated.
Sonny00:04:01A perfect burger, the finish, is that you finish it and you go, hmm, yes. No, that's dumb. That's dumb.
Vic00:04:08That's how I would feel after two. You do understand that I have an eating problem. Yeah. Like, one burger is not enough. Even if it's the greatest burger in the world, I will have a second and then give myself a heart attack.
Sonny00:04:18Look, it's no Tofurky burger, I'm sure.
JVL00:04:20No, it simply isn't a very good burger if when you finish it, you aren't satisfied. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's so delicious. I'm like, wow, that was good.
Vic00:04:26It was so delicious, I want another one.
Sonny00:04:28You really misunderstand. It's not like I'm so hungry that I'm starving. I need to eat. It's not like it's a White Castle slider that I need to eat 17,000 of them.
JVL00:04:38It's that I want to eat another one immediately because it's so delicious. You are misunderstanding me. You should be spiritually satisfied by the burger. A proper burger is good enough that when you finish it, you just go, hmm. Five Guys isn't a church.
Sonny00:04:52I'm not going there to read psalms.
JVL00:04:55No, I agree with Five Guys. I would prefer it if avocado was one of the offered toppings because avocado on a burger is awesome.
Vic00:05:00When was the last time you had a beef burger, JVL? That's what I want to know.
JVL00:05:04I have to say, having Culver's ranked below Shake Shack seems to me very questionable.
Sonny00:05:10I've actually never been to a Culver's. Can someone explain to me the appeal of a Culver's? Because I always, whenever I tweet about burger places, I get angry tweets from people in flyover country who are like, what about Culver's? And I'm like, I don't know what that is.
Vic00:05:24They obviously need to open up one here and one there. You'll have a line going down 10 blocks. But I went to Culver's when I was in Middleton, Wisconsin, reporting on the vodka book. And I heard so much about the Butterburgers that I got myself one. And it was a perfectly sized burger. It's a small patty, so you could have more. But again, if I had more, I feel like I want more. But at the same time, I would feel incredibly guilty and probably not that healthy if I had more.
Sonny00:05:56By JBL's calculus, the Monster Thick Burger would be like the best burger. Because I can't even eat it because I'm just like, oh.
JVL00:06:05You know who's not on this list who deserves to be there? BGR, the burger joint. That's an interesting one. It's a very small chain, though. I mean, I just states and two foreign countries.
Sonny00:06:14How many more states than In-N-Out Burger is in? How many actual locations? Not as many retail outlets. How many actual locations? I didn't do a count. I just did a state count.
JVL00:06:24Two foreign countries. Oman and Kuwait.
Sonny00:06:27You know what's so great about BGR?
JVL00:06:29The bun. They use that brioche bun with like a half a stick of butter is in it. They have excellent onion rings. Onion rings are monster. And what puts it over the top, the single best veggie burger I've ever had. It's like it's got brown sugar in it, and it's sometimes like beans and brown rice, but no mushrooms. Mushroom veggie burgers are gross. And so when I want a really good veggie burger, which is to say, you know, every day,
Vic00:06:52I want to go to BGR, the burger joint, because their veggie burger is so good. They have a great, excuse me, they have a great burger that has like the chorizo on it and a fried egg, and I think like a jalapeno pepper on it, and it is good. I believe the burger with fried egg used to be called the Walleye, and they used to have one at Stoney's Pub on 14th when that was still there. And that's always a good, that's kind of a guilty pleasure. You get that sometimes, the fried egg in the burger.
Sonny00:07:20Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a good way to know that you're really doing it right. Yes. When you get a whole egg. When you get a whole egg on top of your burger.
Vic00:07:27You know, also, basic burger is good, and elevation is good, but there are people who are very finicky about whether or not they prefer thick patties or thin patties, and you can stack the patties. A little bit of trivia here. The first burger place to stack, as if they hadn't thought of this before, it was not until like 1969 that they double-stacked a burger, two patties, was Bob Wyans, and he called it the Big Boy. It became Bob's Big Boy.
JVL00:07:57No kidding. Is that where the origin of Bob's Big Boy went?
Vic00:08:00Yes. Learned something new about it? Yes, exactly. And, oh, no, I'm sorry. Uncle Vic, you know so many things. I work on it. Well, food is my area. It was not necessarily, it was 1937 that they double-stacked the burger. You're only off by 32 years. Self-corrected. But the thing people forget, that the origin of the burger, of course, was that it was very, you know, it was very unsanitary. You would only find burgers outside of, carnivals, circuses, and factories, you know, and there's a guy making a meat patty. Pink slime. Yeah, well, that came out later. But the, and you don't know where it came from. And then, of course, that was changed in 1916, I think, with White Castle. And, yeah, Walter Anderson and Billy Ingram of Wichita, Kansas, decided that it was going to be a nice, clean place, and they wanted uniformity. And what they didn't, they were inadvertently creating brand without realizing it. Really?
JVL00:08:56So they're the original standardized burger? That's where Ray Kroc learned from. That's where everybody learned from was White Castle from 1916. Do you know, I don't mean to grind this show to a halt if you don't know that. No, no, no. Just say I don't know. So when did we get to the, like, USDA grading so everybody knew that what they were eating was actual, you know?
Vic00:09:15I don't know. And not. I don't know. Other? Yes. I don't have an answer to that. But I was thinking about also price. We were thinking, like, let's, you know, taking price out of the equation, because some of these things are so ridiculously expensive. And I noticed that Wendy's is on the list here at four. And I haven't been to a Wendy's in a very long time. I had a Wendy's burger in a long time. I can't imagine it's four. But when Wendy's, when it came out in 1969, that was the most expensive burger in the country. More expensive than anything from Burger King or McDonald's. It was a 55-cent burger. Yeah, I believe that. 55-cent burger and the quarter pound was 53 cents. But it was a big thing.
Sonny00:09:50I do think, I actually really like Wendy's placement here. Wendy's is the only of the, like, actual fast food places the McDonald's, Burger King-type restaurants that I will go and get a burger. Their burgers are uniformly very, very good, very well-made, tasty, and a good value. You know, people will often say, if I can bring it back to In-N-Out vs. Five Guys, which is really what this whole thing is about. You know, people always say, oh, In-N-Out is so much cheaper. And, well, you know, you pay what you get for. You know, you pay what you get. You pay for whatever, however that phrase works.
JVL00:10:22I've only done In-N-Out once.
Sonny00:10:23No, but it just, it is cheaper, and it's not... It's not as good. It's just not, it's not as satisfying an experience.
Vic00:10:30Can I, JVL, do you have any other burger thoughts at this moment?
JVL00:10:34No, except that actually these burgers are all reasonably close in price. There isn't a huge, it isn't like one of these is a $9 burger and the other is a $2. Like, the burgers are reasonably...
Vic00:10:43I do, I have to tell you, though, on the higher end is Shake Shack. Right, with the least satisfying of these. What I was trying to say was unsatisfying. But I like it a lot. I'll have a Shack Double with cheese and bacon and a quadruple bypass. It's delicious. Yeah, I'm sure it's fun.
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