Five Guys caters the way it runs a counter, one sandwich at a time. Every burger is built to order, wrapped in foil on its own, and stacked in a catering box beside a second box holding the toppings in their own trays. There is no platter to portion and no chafing dish to set up, because the order arrives as fifteen or twenty separate meals rather than one shared spread. One thing to know before you plan around that: on ezCater you pick from fixed builds sold in boxes of five, so the per-person part of the order is the toppings bar rather than the sandwich spec. Either way you get individually wrapped food that a hybrid room and a desk drop can both absorb. Since January 2026, when Five Guys put roughly 800 of its US restaurants on ezCater, the ordering side matches the food. Individual stores were listed long before that, and the Times Square restaurant we priced for this guide has been on ezCater since June 2020, but the January rollout is what made the brand findable in most markets.

Jerry and Janie Murrell opened the first Five Guys in Arlington, Virginia in 1986, and the name counted the family: Jerry and his sons. The chain stayed a handful of Washington-area shops for seventeen years before it started franchising in 2003, and it grew on a short list of refusals. No freezers in the building. Beef that arrives fresh. Potatoes cut in the store, with the farm they came from written on a board by the register. Fries cooked in peanut oil, in dedicated fryers. Those refusals are why the catering menu looks the way it does, and why two of them, the hand-cut fries and the peanut oil, turn into the two things you have to plan around when you feed an office. This guide covers what a Five Guys catering order actually costs, the bundles and boxes, the Little-versus-Regular trap that doubles orders, what the separate toppings trays let you do, how much to order per person, the peanut question, where the menu runs out of room for a mixed-diet team, and how Five Guys compares to the other ways to feed a room.
Five Guys catering bundles, box names, minimums, notice windows, delivery radius and ezCater availability vary by location and change over time. Order through ezCater or fiveguys.com, or call the restaurant nearest your office, and confirm the current catering menu, quantities, timing and the Nutrition and Allergy information directly with that store before you plan around any of it.
In This Guide
- Five Guys Catering Prices (2026)
- How Five Guys Catering Works
- The Catering Menu: Bundles, Boxes and Build Your Own
- Little vs. Regular: The Word That Doubles Your Order
- The Toppings Ride Separately
- The Fries Problem
- How Much to Order by Headcount
- The Peanut Question, Before You Order
- Where Five Guys Runs Out of Room in a Mixed Office
- How to Order Five Guys for a Group
- Pros and Cons for Office Catering
- Who Five Guys Catering Is Best For
- Five Guys vs. Other Catering Options
- A Better Option for Recurring Office Meals
- Frequently Asked Questions
Five Guys Catering Prices (2026)
Five Guys franchisees set their own catering prices, so every figure below comes from one named store: the Five Guys catering menu on ezCater for 141 Danada Square E in Wheaton, Illinois, in the western Chicago suburbs, checked in September 2026. A second store at 253 W 42nd St in New York carries the market-spread table at the end. The two menus are identical item for item, which makes them easy to compare and makes the price gap between them the only variable. Treat these as a working baseline rather than a national price list, and remember that a delivery fee sits on top of every total here. Ordering direct from the restaurant for pickup usually lands under delivery pricing.
The short version: a box of five Little Cheeseburgers is $50.00, a box of five Regular Cheeseburgers is $71.00, and the one-line-item packages run $158.00 to $263.00 for fifteen people. Large fries are $8.99 and serve four. The Wheaton store sets a $150.00 delivery minimum and a $30.00 and up delivery fee.
The one number worth knowing before you order. The bundles are not bundles. Three of the six catering packages are built entirely from items the same menu also sells separately, so you can price them exactly, and all three cost more assembled than in pieces. At Wheaton the Regular Burger Trio + Fries is $263.00 against $254.96 for the identical food bought as three burger boxes and four large fries. The Regular Burger Duo + Fries is $251.00 against $242.96. The Little Burger Trio + Fries is $200.00 against $191.96. That is the same $8.04 premium three times, to the cent, and it has one cause: every package prices its four large fries at $44.00, or $11.00 each, while the menu sells the same large fries for $8.99. The New York store marks the fries up too, by $5.00, $6.00 and $12.00. Neither store has a bundle that beats its own parts.
Catering Packages
Six packages, each one line item, each serving fifteen. Only the three with fries in the name include any. Every package arrives with its sandwiches individually wrapped and a toppings bar included.
| Package | What Is In It | Serves | Price | Per Person |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Burger Trio + Fries | 5 regular hamburgers, 5 regular cheeseburgers, 5 regular bacon cheeseburgers, 4 large fries | 15 | $263.00 | $17.53 |
| Regular Burger Duo + Fries | 10 regular cheeseburgers, 5 regular hamburgers, 4 large fries | 15 | $251.00 | $16.73 |
| Little Burger Trio + Fries | 5 little hamburgers, 5 little cheeseburgers, 5 little bacon cheeseburgers, 4 large fries | 15 | $200.00 | $13.33 |
| Ultimate Variety Box | 10 regular cheeseburgers, 3 hot dogs, 2 grilled cheeses. No fries | 15 | $184.00 | $12.27 |
| Burger And Dog Duo | 5 regular hamburgers, 5 regular cheeseburgers, 5 hot dogs. No fries | 15 | $181.00 | $12.07 |
| Burger And Sandwich Mix | 5 regular cheeseburgers, 5 BLTs, 5 grilled cheeses. No fries | 15 | $158.00 | $10.53 |
These three packages are the only way to buy a hot dog, a BLT or a grilled cheese from Five Guys catering. None of the three is sold on its own, so a room that wants two hot dogs has to take the whole Ultimate Variety Box or the whole Burger And Dog Duo to get them.
Burger Boxes
ezCater files these under Add-On Burger Boxes (5 Burgers), and the count in the heading is the important part. There is no single-sandwich burger anywhere on the catering menu. Five is the smallest unit of beef you can buy, and every burger in a box is the same build, so a twelve-person room buys fifteen burgers.
| Burger Box | Patties | Serves | Price | Per Person |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Bacon Cheeseburger Box | Two | 5 | $83.00 | $16.60 |
| Regular Cheeseburger Box | Two | 5 | $71.00 | $14.20 |
| Regular Hamburger Box | Two | 5 | $65.00 | $13.00 |
| Little Bacon Cheeseburger Box | One | 5 | $62.00 | $12.40 |
| Little Cheeseburger Box | One | 5 | $50.00 | $10.00 |
| Little Hamburger Box | One | 5 | $44.00 | $8.80 |
At this store the second patty costs a flat $21.00 a box whichever burger you put it in: $44.00 to $65.00 on the hamburger, $50.00 to $71.00 on the cheeseburger, $62.00 to $83.00 on the bacon cheeseburger. That is $4.20 a head, every time, which is the cleanest way to price the Little-versus-Regular decision the next section gets into. The New York store does not repeat the pattern: there the same three upgrades cost $15.00, $15.00 and $24.00.
Bundle or Parts: The Exact Comparison
Three packages decompose completely into items the menu also sells separately, so the comparison below is arithmetic rather than an estimate. The food is identical in every row. The only thing that changes is how many lines your order has.
| Package | Package Price | Same Food as Parts | You Pay Extra | Fries Priced At |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Burger Trio + Fries | $263.00 | $254.96 = Regular Hamburger + Regular Cheeseburger + Regular Bacon Cheeseburger boxes + 4 Large Fries | $8.04 | $11.00 each |
| Regular Burger Duo + Fries | $251.00 | $242.96 = 2 Regular Cheeseburger Boxes + Regular Hamburger Box + 4 Large Fries | $8.04 | $11.00 each |
| Little Burger Trio + Fries | $200.00 | $191.96 = Little Hamburger + Little Cheeseburger + Little Bacon Cheeseburger boxes + 4 Large Fries | $8.04 | $11.00 each |
Buy the packages anyway if you want one line on the invoice and one thing to check at the door. Just do not order one because you think it is cheaper.
Sandwiches, Fries and Drinks
The two veggie sandwiches are the only items on this menu sold one at a time, with no minimum. Fries come in one size, large, plain or Cajun, and ezCater tags both as vegetarian, vegan and gluten free. Drinks are bottles. There is no gallon, no dispenser and no fountain option, and there is no dessert on the catering menu at all.
| Item | Serves | Price | Per Person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Veggie Sandwich | 1 | $5.29 | $5.29 |
| Veggie Cheese Sandwich | 1 | $6.29 | $6.29 |
| Large Fries | 4 | $8.99 | $2.25 |
| Large Cajun Fries | 4 | $8.99 | $2.25 |
| Assorted Bottled Beverages (4 Coke, 4 Sprite, 4 Diet Coke, 3 Lemonade) | 15 | $58.35 | $3.89 |
| Coke, Diet Coke or Coke Zero Sugar bottle | 1 | $3.89 | $3.89 |
| Sprite bottle or Simply Lemonade | 1 | $3.59 | $3.59 |
| Dasani water | 1 | $3.09 | $3.09 |
The veggie sandwiches take five free modifications, one per vegetable, and one paid one: Add Bacon, at $1.90 here and $2.99 in New York. That is the only charged add-on anywhere on the catering menu, and it stops the sandwich being vegetarian.
The Toppings Bar: Seven Free, Eight More Free If You Ask
Every package and every burger box includes a toppings bar, and the burgers arrive undressed so the room builds its own. That part is automatic and costs nothing. What is not automatic is the other half of the lineup. Eight more toppings sit one screen deeper, under Add additional specialty topping trays. They are free, and they do not come unless you tick the boxes. Selecting all eight left the total at $263.00 when we checked. The two halves together make up the fifteen toppings Five Guys charges nothing for.
| Comes With Every Box | Free, But You Have to Tick It |
|---|---|
| Lettuce | Grilled Onions |
| Tomato | Grilled Mushrooms |
| Onions | Green Peppers |
| Pickles | Jalapenos |
| Mayo | Relish |
| Ketchup | BBQ Sauce |
| Mustard | Hot Sauce |
| A-1 Sauce |
Tick all eight. They cost nothing, they arrive in their own trays sized to the box, and grilled onions and grilled mushrooms are the two that turn a plain cheeseburger into something people remember.
What a Real Order Costs
Every total below is food only, at the Wheaton store, before tax and before the $30.00 delivery fee. The $150.00 delivery minimum is the constraint that decides small orders: five people cannot reach it, and fifteen people reach it exactly, because three Little Cheeseburger Boxes come to $150.00 on the nose.
| The Order | People | Food Total | Per Person |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Little Cheeseburger Box + 2 Large Fries (pickup, below the delivery floor) | 5 | $67.98 | $13.60 |
| 3 Little Cheeseburger Boxes, no fries (the cheapest order that clears $150.00) | 15 | $150.00 | $10.00 |
| Little Burger Trio + Fries, one line item | 15 | $200.00 | $13.33 |
| The same food as parts: 3 little boxes + 4 Large Fries | 15 | $191.96 | $12.80 |
| 3 Little Cheeseburger + 1 Little Bacon Cheeseburger + 2 Veggie Sandwiches + 5 Large Fries | 20 | $267.53 | $13.38 |
| 2 Regular Cheeseburger + 1 Regular Bacon + 3 Little Cheeseburger + 8 Large Fries + 2 bottle packs | 30 | $563.62 | $18.79 |
The twenty-person row shows the rounding tax. Boxes of five and a pair of vegetarians mean you buy twenty-two meals to feed twenty people, and there is no way to buy eighteen burgers. Plan on ordering up to the next multiple of five and treat the spare sandwiches as the price of the format.
Two Markets, Two Price Lists
The Wheaton and Times Square menus carry the same twenty-three items in the same five categories, which makes the gap between them pure pricing. New York runs 3 to 34 percent above Chicago on every burger box and every package, and 47 percent above on the Veggie Sandwich. It is cheaper on exactly two things: the fries and the single bottled drinks, and the fifteen-bottle multipack still costs more there. Price your own store before you budget from any figure in this guide.
| Item | Wheaton, IL | New York, NY | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Little Hamburger Box (5) | $44.00 | $59.00 | +34.1% |
| Little Cheeseburger Box (5) | $50.00 | $64.00 | +28.0% |
| Little Bacon Cheeseburger Box (5) | $62.00 | $64.00 | +3.2% |
| Regular Hamburger Box (5) | $65.00 | $74.00 | +13.8% |
| Regular Cheeseburger Box (5) | $71.00 | $79.00 | +11.3% |
| Regular Bacon Cheeseburger Box (5) | $83.00 | $88.00 | +6.0% |
| Little Burger Trio + Fries (15) | $200.00 | $234.00 | +17.0% |
| Regular Burger Trio + Fries (15) | $263.00 | $281.00 | +6.8% |
| Burger And Sandwich Mix (15) | $158.00 | $183.00 | +15.8% |
| Ultimate Variety Box (15) | $184.00 | $207.00 | +12.5% |
| Veggie Sandwich | $5.29 | $7.79 | +47.3% |
| Large Fries (serves 4) | $8.99 | $8.75 | -2.7% |
| Assorted Bottled Beverages (15) | $58.35 | $66.00 | +13.1% |
| Simply Lemonade bottle | $3.59 | $2.99 | -16.7% |
| Add Bacon to a veggie sandwich | $1.90 | $2.99 | +57.4% |
| Delivery fee | $30.00 and up | $22.50 and up | Both on a $150.00 minimum |
How Five Guys Catering Works
Five Guys does not run a separate catering kitchen. Your order goes to a restaurant, which builds it on the same line that serves the counter, then boxes it. That keeps the food identical to what a walk-in customer gets, and it caps how fast a single store can produce. A twenty-sandwich order is twenty hand-built sandwiches, so the notice window matters more here than it does for a chain that scoops from a hotel pan.
Two channels get you there. Ordering through ezCater covers about 800 US restaurants on one account, with delivery, a stated lead time and a support line if the driver goes missing, which is why most offices should start there. Ordering direct through fiveguys.com or by phone works too, and Five Guys’ own FAQ sets the gate at a fifteen-sandwich minimum with sixteen hours’ notice. Individual stores set their own floors, so treat that as the shape of the rule instead of the rule.
Either way, this is drop-off catering. Nobody arrives to staff a line, lay out chafing dishes or serve. The boxes land on your table and someone from your office opens them. If you need a person on site running a station, that is a different kind of order, and our corporate event catering checklist walks through when you need one.
The Catering Menu: Bundles, Boxes and Build Your Own
The catering menu sorts into two shapes on ezCater, plus a third if you order direct. Bundles feed a group off one line item: a Regular Burger Trio or Duo with fries, a Little Burger Trio with fries, a Burger and Dog Duo, a Burger and Sandwich Mix, or the Ultimate Variety Box when you want the spread to cover more than beef. All six serve fifteen. Burger boxes let you pick the exact sandwich, so a Regular Cheeseburger Box, a Little Bacon Cheeseburger Box or a Regular Hamburger Box each show up as their own line and you build the headcount yourself. Read that category name before you plan, though: ezCater files them as Add-On Burger Boxes (5 Burgers), and five is the smallest number of burgers you can buy. There is no single-sandwich item on the catering menu. Build Your Own Box, which Five Guys shortens to BYOB, is the third shape, and it lives on the direct channel rather than on ezCater. Neither of the two stores we priced for this guide listed one.
Around the sandwiches sit fries in large orders, plain or Cajun, and bottled drinks rather than a dispenser. Hot dogs, the BLT and the grilled cheese ride on the same order, which matters more than it sounds, because a burger order that can absorb dogs and a veggie sandwich covers a wider room than a platter of one thing. Check how you buy them, though. None of the three is a line item of its own. Hot dogs come only inside the Burger and Dog Duo or the Ultimate Variety Box, and the BLT and the grilled cheese come only inside the Burger and Sandwich Mix. The two veggie sandwiches are the only things on this menu you can order one at a time.
Bundles are the right call when you want to order in under two minutes and the room is not fussy. Burger boxes are the right call the moment anyone has a real preference, because a bundle picks the sandwiches for you and a box does not. Boxes are also cheaper: at the Chicago-area store we priced for this guide, every bundle that includes fries costs $8.04 more than the same food bought as boxes plus fries. For a recurring weekday program, the burger-box route is also what makes the order legible later, since you can see what the room actually ate and adjust. That is the same logic behind ordering by the individual meal in our boxed lunch catering guide for meetings.
Little vs. Regular: The Word That Doubles Your Order
Read this section before you check out. At Five Guys, a Regular burger is two patties and a Little burger is one. The words describe the beef, not the bun or the box, and the menu leads with Regular. An office manager who orders twenty Regular Cheeseburgers for a Tuesday lunch has bought forty patties, and roughly half of them come back in the box.
For a midday meal with an afternoon of work after it, order Little. It is a single patty on the same bun with the same toppings, it costs $21.00 less a box of five at the store we priced, and it leaves people able to think at two o’clock. Save Regular for the crowd that wants a full dinner-weight burger: a late-afternoon celebration, a launch night, a team that just finished a physical shift. Plenty of offices split the order, ordering mostly Little with a handful of Regulars for the people who asked.
The same instinct applies to fries. A large order is built to share, so counting one per person overshoots. Order fries by the group rather than by the head and you will land closer. If you want a fuller treatment of how portion language trips up office orders, our guide to boxed lunch catering costs covers the same trap across formats.
The Toppings Ride Separately
Five Guys lists fifteen toppings and charges for none of them. Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, green peppers and jalapenos on the produce side; mayo, ketchup, mustard, relish, barbecue sauce, hot sauce and steak sauce on the other. On a walk-in order they go on the sandwich. On a catering order they arrive in their own foil trays alongside the wrapped burgers, because every package and every burger box includes a toppings bar as standard. The catch is that the included bar carries only seven of the fifteen: lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, mustard, mayo and ketchup. The other eight sit one screen deeper as specialty topping trays. They are still free, and they do not arrive unless you tick them.
That packaging decision is the best thing about a Five Guys order for an office. A tray of pre-dressed sandwiches makes one decision for everybody, and the person who hates raw onion eats around it. Separate trays turn a drop-off into a build-your-own bar with none of the setup, so a room of twenty people dresses twenty burgers however they want, in about four minutes, with no station to rent and nobody to staff it. If that format appeals to you as a standing pattern rather than a burger-day one-off, our guides to a build-your-own sandwich bar and to party tray catering for offices cover how to run it on purpose.
Separate toppings also protect the food on the way over. A dressed burger sitting in a box for twenty-five minutes pushes water out of the tomato and lettuce into the bun. Undressed patties on bread arrive intact, and the produce stays crisp in its own tray. You do not have to ask for this. The toppings bar is part of every catering package and every burger box, and the burgers are not dressed. The thing to remember at checkout is the opposite: open the item screen and tick the eight free specialty topping trays, because grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, green peppers, jalapenos, relish, barbecue sauce, hot sauce and A-1 do not come unless you do.
The Fries Problem

The fries are the item people associate with Five Guys and the item that suffers most in a catering order. Stores cut potatoes on site, fry them in small batches and scoop them hot into a paper bag, and a bag of hot fries generates steam with nowhere to go. Twenty minutes in a car turns the crisp exterior soft. Nobody at your office can undo that.
You can shorten the gap. Pick the closest participating store rather than the one you like best, schedule the drop for the minute people eat instead of fifteen minutes early, and open the fry bags the moment they land so the steam escapes. Cajun fries hold their character a little better than plain, because the seasoning survives even when the texture slips. For a pickup order, send someone who will drive straight back.
If the drive is long enough that fries are hopeless, order fewer of them and put the budget into sandwiches, or drop them for a side that travels. This is the same calculation behind ordering sauces and dressings separately, and it is worth reading alongside how other fried menus handle transit in our Buffalo Wild Wings catering guide and Raising Cane’s catering guide.
How Much to Order by Headcount
Start from one sandwich per person and adjust on patty count rather than sandwich count. Order fries by the group. The table assumes a working lunch, not a celebration.
| Headcount | What to order | Fries | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6-8 (small team) | One or two Little burger boxes, plus a veggie sandwich for anyone who needs one | 2-3 large | Every bundle serves fifteen, so one roughly doubles this room. Boxes of five fit, but $150.00 of food is the delivery floor, so this size is often a pickup order |
| 10-15 (department lunch) | Mostly Little boxes, a few Regulars, one veggie sandwich, and tick the free specialty topping trays | 4-5 large | Burger boxes let you name every build, and fifteen is the size where the $150.00 delivery floor stops being a factor |
| 20-30 (floor or all-hands) | Little boxes as the base, an Ultimate Variety Box for range (it carries the only hot dogs), two veggie sandwiches | 7-9 large, split plain and Cajun | Variety matters more as the room grows, and a single store needs real notice at this volume |
| 40+ (company lunch) | Split the order across two nearby stores, or move to a caterer built for the count | Order per store | One line building forty-plus hand-made sandwiches will run long and the last ones sit |
| Celebration, any size | Shift the mix toward Regular and add a Regular Bacon Cheeseburger Box. There are no milkshakes and no desserts on the catering menu | One large per 3 people | A double patty reads as an event, and nobody has to be productive afterward |
The Peanut Question, Before You Order
Settle this one before you compare menus. Five Guys fries in refined peanut oil, in fryers that cook nothing else, and many restaurants keep bowls of free in-shell peanuts in the dining room. The company’s position is that refined peanut oil carries lower risk than cold-pressed, which matches the general guidance on refined oils, and that it cannot guarantee the absence of cross-contamination given how central peanuts are to the operation. Both halves of that are true and you need both.
The question people forget to ask
Does anyone on the invite list have a peanut allergy? If the answer is yes or you do not know, ask before you order rather than after the food arrives. A person with a serious peanut allergy who finds out at the table has no meal and no good options, and a catering order is not the place to run that experiment. Offices in this position usually order the burgers, skip the fries, or pick a different vendor for that meal. Our guides to allergy-safe boxed lunches and catering for food allergies in the workplace cover how to collect that information without singling anyone out.
For an office with no peanut allergies on the list, none of this changes your order. For an office with one, it decides the whole thing, which is why it sits above the dietary section rather than inside it.
Where Five Guys Runs Out of Room in a Mixed Office
Be honest with yourself about the room before you order. Five Guys does vegetarian, and it does not do much else.
The Veggie Sandwich and Veggie Cheese Sandwich put grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, green peppers and lettuce on a bun, and they are a real sandwich rather than a garnish. What Five Guys does not carry is a plant-based patty, so a vegetarian gets vegetables and a vegan gets vegetables without the cheese or mayo. Anyone expecting a burger analogue will notice. Our vegetarian office catering guide and vegan office catering guide cover vendors that do carry one.
Gluten is the harder wall. The buns are made with wheat flour, and the catering menu carries no lettuce wrap, no bowl and no bunless option, because the burger boxes take no modifications at all. The only gluten-free item on it is the fries, which ezCater tags gluten free and which cook in dedicated fryers. A store may still build something off the walk-in menu for you, and that comes off a shared line, so it works for a preference and it does not work for celiac disease. Bacon on the menu rules the kitchen out for halal and kosher teams. For those rooms, start from gluten-free office catering, halal office catering or kosher office catering instead, and use how to order catering for mixed dietary needs when the room spans several of these at once.
One more thing the menu does not do is light. A burger and fries is a substantial lunch by construction, and there is no salad on the board. If your team wants something they can eat before an afternoon of focused work, our healthy office catering guide and keto office catering guide point at formats built for it.
How to Order Five Guys for a Group
- Count the room by build, not by person. Ask how many want a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a bacon cheeseburger, how many want one patty rather than two, and how many need a veggie sandwich. Settle the allergy question in the same message. The toppings bar handles every preference below that level.
- Find the closest participating store. Search Five Guys on ezCater by your office address, or call the nearest restaurant to confirm it caters. Drive time is the variable that decides how the fries land.
- Choose bundles or burger boxes. Bundles for speed and a relaxed room, burger boxes the moment anyone has a preference worth honoring. Boxes hold five, so round the headcount up to the next multiple of five.
- Default to Little. Order Regular only for the people who asked for it, or for a celebration where a double patty is the point.
- Tick the free topping trays. The seven-item toppings bar comes with every box already. Grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, green peppers, jalapenos, relish, barbecue sauce, hot sauce and A-1 are free but opt-in.
- Order fries by the group. Roughly one large per three people, split between plain and Cajun if the room is big enough to want both.
- Give it real notice. Sixteen hours is the floor on a direct order and a large order deserves more. Call the store for anything above twenty sandwiches so a human confirms the kitchen can hit your time.
- Name an on-site contact. Put a phone number on the order and tell that person when the drop is. A driver in a lobby with no name to call is how a hot order goes cold.
- Schedule the drop for when people eat. Not fifteen minutes early. Open the fry bags immediately.
Plan burger catering with CaterAi
Pros and Cons for Office Catering
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Every sandwich is individually wrapped and undressed, so desk drops and a hybrid room are native | Burgers come only in boxes of five of one build, so you round up and you cannot order just one |
| Toppings arrive in separate trays, which handles a mixed room without a station | Peanut oil and in-shell peanuts make it a hard no for some teams |
| Fifteen toppings at no charge: seven in the box, eight more free if you tick them | Fresh-cut fries lose their texture on any real drive |
| Roughly 800 US locations on ezCater since January 2026, so coverage is broad | No plant-based patty, no gluten-free bun, no salad, nothing light |
| Food comes off the same line as the counter order, so quality is consistent | One kitchen hand-building forty sandwiches is slow, and the last ones wait |
| Burgers, dogs and sandwiches on one order cover a wider room than a single platter | Drop-off only, with no staffing, setup or service |
Who Five Guys Catering Is Best For
Order Five Guys when
Your team wants a real burger and you can count the room by build in advance. A hybrid or distributed room where individually wrapped meals beat a shared spread, which our guide to boxed lunches for hybrid teams gets into. A celebration, a launch, a Friday win or an outdoor company event where a double patty is the point. Any room where nobody has a peanut allergy and the store is a short drive.
Look elsewhere when
Anyone on the list has a peanut allergy, or you cannot confirm that nobody does. Your team spans vegan, celiac, halal or kosher needs. You want a recurring weekday program rather than a one-off, since collecting specs every week gets old fast. The room needs something light before an afternoon of focused work, or the meal is a board meeting or a lunch and learn where people eat while someone presents and a burger is the wrong shape.
Five Guys vs. Other Catering Options
| Option | Format | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five Guys | Foil-wrapped sandwiches in boxes of five; toppings in separate trays | A burger day for a room that can settle its builds in advance | Peanut oil, soft fries after a drive, thin dietary bench |
| A local burger caterer | Sliders on trays, or a staffed grill for larger events | Big counts, staffing, plant-based patties on request | Costs more, and quality varies vendor to vendor |
| A sandwich or sub chain | Boxed lunches or platters, cold | Recurring weekday lunches with no reheat problem | Reads as routine rather than a treat |
| Zerocater | A rotating roster of local restaurants on one account | Ongoing programs, mixed dietary rooms, multiple offices | Built for a repeating program, so a single order is not the use case |
Every burger chain has a local counterpart worth knowing. Zerocater partners with independent burger kitchens across our metros, including Nomnom Burger in San Francisco, Burger Bar in Chicago, Lucy’s Burger Bar in Denver, 206 Burger Company in Seattle, Evergreen Burgers in Redmond, The Burger Grind near Dallas, Habibi Burger in Los Angeles and Dipped N Smashed outside New York. Browse the full North American catering directory, or the barbecue and Southern directories when the craving is adjacent.
A Better Option for Recurring Office Meals
Five Guys is a good answer to one question: what do we order the day the team wants burgers. It is a worse answer to the standing question, which is what do we feed this office every week without anyone spending an hour on it. Collecting twenty sandwich specs works once. Doing it every Tuesday is a job.
Zerocater exists for the standing version. You get a rotating roster of local restaurants instead of one chain, dietary needs tracked per person rather than re-collected every week, and one invoice across every office. CaterAi handles the one-off end: describe the event, the headcount and the restrictions, and it builds a menu from more than a thousand restaurant partners that you can edit by chatting with it. For an ongoing meal program, start at corporate catering. For a single large event, corporate event catering is the right door, and how it works covers the mechanics.
Plan burger catering with CaterAi
Planning something bigger than a burger day? Our guides to offsite and team retreat catering, holiday party catering, summer office catering, finger food for office events, happy hour appetizers and office breakfast catering cover the rest of the calendar, and the office manager’s guide to ordering catering is the one to read first if this is a new part of your job. If you are pricing a program, the cost guides for San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Denver and Dallas give you real local numbers, and the best-of lists for San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Seattle name the local vendors worth calling.
Comparing chains? We have written the same treatment for Buffalo Wild Wings, Raising Cane’s, Outback Steakhouse, IHOP, Chick-fil-A, Panda Express, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, Firehouse Subs, Jimmy John’s and Potbelly, plus alternatives roundups for IHOP and Subway. Industry-specific reads live in our guides for tech companies, manufacturing and nonprofits, and boxed lunch versus buffet settles the format question.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Five Guys do catering?
Yes. Roughly 800 US Five Guys restaurants have offered catering through ezCater since January 2026, and stores also take large orders directly through fiveguys.com or by phone. The catering menu is six bundles that each serve fifteen and six burger boxes that each hold five burgers, delivered or picked up as drop-off with no staffing or setup.
What is the minimum order for Five Guys catering?
Five Guys’ own FAQ sets a fifteen-sandwich minimum with sixteen hours’ notice for a direct order. On ezCater the floor is a dollar figure instead, and both stores we priced for this guide set a $150.00 minimum for delivery, which is exactly three Little Cheeseburger Boxes at the Chicago-area store. Individual restaurants set their own, so confirm with the location nearest your office rather than planning around the general number.
What is the difference between a Little and a Regular burger at Five Guys?
A Regular is two patties and a Little is one, on the same bun with the same toppings. This is the most common way an office order goes wrong, because the menu leads with Regular and twenty Regulars means forty patties. For a working lunch, order Little and add Regulars only for the people who asked.
Is Five Guys safe for someone with a peanut allergy?
Decide this before you order. Five Guys fries in refined peanut oil in dedicated fryers and many restaurants keep bowls of free in-shell peanuts in the dining room. The company says refined peanut oil carries lower risk than cold-pressed oil, and also says it cannot guarantee there is no cross-contamination. If anyone on your invite list has a peanut allergy, ask them first or order from somewhere else for that meal.
Are there vegetarian or vegan options in a Five Guys catering order?
The Veggie Sandwich and Veggie Cheese Sandwich put grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, green peppers and lettuce on a bun, so a vegetarian gets a real sandwich and a vegan can order it without cheese or mayo. Five Guys does not carry a plant-based patty, so anyone hoping for a burger analogue will come up short.
Can you get gluten-free food from Five Guys catering?
Not really. The buns are made with wheat flour, and the catering menu has no lettuce wrap, no bowl and no bunless option, because the burger boxes take no modifications. The one gluten-free item on it is the fries, which are tagged gluten free and cook in dedicated fryers. Anything a store builds off-menu still comes off a shared line, which makes it workable for a preference and unsuitable for celiac disease.
How do you keep Five Guys fries from getting soggy on the way to the office?
Pick the closest participating store, schedule the drop for the moment people eat instead of early, and open the bags as soon as they arrive so the steam escapes. Fresh-cut fries bagged hot soften on a drive, so order fries by the group rather than one per person and put the rest of the budget into sandwiches.
How many people can one Five Guys store cater for?
Every sandwich is hand-built on the same line that serves walk-in customers, so a store’s ceiling is time rather than inventory. Twenty to thirty sandwiches with real notice is comfortable for most locations. Above forty, split the order across two nearby stores or use a caterer built for the count, because the last sandwiches out of a single kitchen will have been sitting.




