Five Guys caters the way it runs a counter, one sandwich at a time. Every burger is built to one person’s order, wrapped in foil, 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. That single fact decides almost everything about ordering Five Guys for a team: you have to collect specs before you order, and in exchange you get labeled, per-person 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. Before that, catering was a store-by-store conversation.
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 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
- 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
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 three shapes. 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. Single boxes let you order by the exact sandwich, so a Regular Cheeseburger Box, a Little Bacon Cheeseburger Box or a plain Hamburger Box each show up as their own line and you build the headcount yourself. Build Your Own Box, which Five Guys shortens to BYOB, is the escape hatch when neither shape fits.
Around the sandwiches sit fries in large orders, plain or Cajun, and bottled drinks rather than a dispenser. Hot dogs and the sandwich line, including a BLT and a grilled cheese, ride on the same order, which matters more than it sounds: a burger order that can absorb two dogs and a veggie sandwich covers a wider room than a platter of one thing.
Bundles are the right call when you want to order in under two minutes and the room is not fussy. Single 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. For a recurring weekday program, the single-box route is also what makes the order legible later, since you can see who ate what 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 less, 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 often arrive in their own foil trays alongside the wrapped burgers.
That accident of packaging 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 happy accident, 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. When you order, ask for the toppings on the side and confirm the store packs them that way, because a busy line will default to dressing them if nobody says otherwise.
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 bundle, or single boxes if anyone has a preference | 2-3 large | A bundle covers a small room in one line item, and a direct order may sit below the sandwich minimum |
| 10-15 (department lunch) | Mostly Little boxes, a few Regulars, one veggie sandwich, toppings on the side | 4-5 large | Single boxes let you name every sandwich, and this is the size where the sandwich minimum stops being a factor |
| 20-30 (floor or all-hands) | Little boxes as the base, an Ultimate Variety Box for range, two hot dogs, two veggie | 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, add bacon boxes and milkshakes if the store offers them | 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, so the gluten-free path is a lettuce wrap or a bowl, both offered at no charge and both built on a shared line. That 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
- Collect the specs first. Per-person builds need per-person answers. Ask for sandwich, patty count and any topping the person will not eat, and settle the allergy question in the same message.
- 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 single boxes. Bundles for speed and a relaxed room, single boxes the moment anyone has a preference worth honoring.
- Default to Little. Order Regular only for the people who asked for it, or for a celebration where a double patty is the point.
- Ask for toppings on the side. Confirm the store is packing them in separate trays rather than dressing the sandwiches.
- 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.
Pros and Cons for Office Catering
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Every sandwich is built to one person’s order, so labeling and desk drops are native | Per-person builds mean you have to collect per-person specs before you can order |
| 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, so customization costs nothing | 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 get specs from everyone in advance. A hybrid or distributed room where labeled, 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 | Individually built, foil-wrapped sandwiches; toppings in separate trays | A burger day for a room that can send specs 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, iniBurger in Berkeley, 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 your next team meal 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 bundles and single boxes built from the regular menu, 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. Individual restaurants set their own floors and ezCater orders follow that store’s stated minimum, 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?
The buns are made with wheat flour, so the gluten-free route is a lettuce wrap or a bowl, both available at no extra charge. The kitchen builds both on the same line as everything else, which makes them 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.
to plan your catering
