Jan 14, 2019 · 37m · how-i-built-this
Five Guys: Jerry Murrell (2019)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, Jerry Murrell shares how prioritizing family collaboration, simple culinary fundamentals, and uncompromising ingredient quality transformed a modest Virginia burger joint into the global restaurant phenomenon Five Guys.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 36.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.2 Guest teaching 2.1 Guest disagreement 1.0 Guy pushing back 1.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:15 Rejecting standard franchise orthodoxies
Jerry forcefully dismisses conventional franchising concepts, explaining why telling franchisees to ignore advertising and food costs seemed ridiculous to corporate types.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 8:06 Questioning risking children's college fundGuy presses Jerry on the audacity of giving his teenage sons the choice between college tuition and financing a risky burger restaurant.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:15 Educating on non-equity revenue notesJerry explains his financial planning maneuver of taking loans with percentage cuts of gross monthly sales and full repayment rights rather than surrendering equity.
Guy holds their own ▶ 20:18 Guy contextualizes Five Guys' early Virginia footprintGuy demonstrates local firsthand familiarity with Five Guys' early years around Northern Virginia before it expanded nationally.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jerry's Upbringing and Early Hardships | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Guy Raz gently narrates and prompts Jerry Murrell regarding his early life, divorces, and failed early business attempts. Jerry speaks candidly and self-deprecatingly with zero hostility or combative tension. | |
| The Inspirations for Five Guys | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Jerry describes the origins of the concept from Push'em Up Tony and Ocean City fries. Guy gently questions the unconventional gamble of using college funds for a burger joint, which Jerry readily admits was crazy. | |
| The Origin of the Name 'Five Guys' | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Jerry educates Guy on Five Guys' early supply chain and quality decisions, such as blind taste-testing expensive mayonnaise and ignoring food cost margins. The interaction is deeply collaborative and explanatory. | |
| Word-of-Mouth Philosophy and Destination Dining | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Jerry explains his non-traditional financing strategy of giving percentages of gross revenue rather than equity with a right of repayment. Guy seeks clarification on why investors would agree to notes instead of formal equity ownership. | |
| Going Full-Time and Establishing Family Roles | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy contextualizes his personal memories of visiting Five Guys in Virginia around 2000. Jerry clarifies that taking 17 years before franchising allowed them to perfect the operational model. | |
| Entering the Franchising Arena | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Jerry details his stubborn resistance to franchising and explains how standard franchise rules contradicted his philosophy. He shares how his sons convinced him using Dave Thomas's franchising book. | |
| Overcoming Expansion Anxieties | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Jerry outlines his anxiety about expanding outside Northern Virginia and how each family member found their specific operational specialty. Guy asks straightforward clarifying questions regarding ownership structure. | |
| Global Expansion and the Role of Luck | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Jerry reflects with humility on the international expansion and attributes much of the brand's outcome to luck, intuition, and family devotion. Guy provides supportive framing about the true success being family reconciliation. | |
| Five Guys Conclusion and Milkshake Expansion | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz wraps up the Five Guys feature with milkshake details and conducts a short narrative profile with Hannah England about Wash It Later. The dynamic is fully promotional and cooperative. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Murrell: Attempted oil and bottled water ventures in the 1970s
“I tried a few businesses. I started an oil business in Texas, and I did a couple other dumb things. I tried to start a water business, of all things. I thought selling bottled water back then would have been a good idea, and everybody laughed at me. I had a ha…”
Murrell: Five Guys idea came from focusing simply on burgers and fries
“So me and the kids, that got into our mind, like, you know, hamburgers, fries, keep it simple, might work. And that's where the idea came from.”
Murrell: Hidden real estate locations proved genuine customer demand
“And we said, well, if we can put it where, you know, it's hard to find, but if we can get people coming there, then we know we got something.”
Murrell: Five Guys opened its first location with just $35,000
“Our first story put 35,000 dollars in it.”
Murrell: Five Guys was originally named for Jerry and his four sons
“We had three sons plus one more son with Janie. My fifth son wasn't born yet, so it was four sons and me, so we said, well, we'll call it Five Guys for now, and then we'll change it.”
Murrell: Five Guys was profitable from its very first day
“And we made money from our very first day, and we were breaking even, and we were paying our rent.”
Murrell: Five Guys' original potato supplier is now a multimillionaire
“Now he's become a multimillionaire because we buy all our potatoes from him.”
Murrell: Five Guys initially paid seven times McDonald's price for buns
“We were paying about seven times For a hamburger bun as McDonald's was then.”
Murrell: Five Guys would rather raise prices than exceed 30% food costs
“We would always say, food costs would stay around 30%. Whatever we gotta do, if we gotta raise prices, we raise prices. And we said, if we have to worry about price, we don't want to be in this business.”
Murrell: Early investors got a cut of gross revenue, not profit
“We'd say, give us 5000 dollars, we'll give you a certain percentage of the gross, not never the profit, because there was always too many ways to get cheap people that way.”
Murrell: Five Guys perfected operations for 17 years before franchising
“Most franchisers start off to franchise. We didn't start off to franchise. We had no idea we were going to do that. We started off to build a family business, and we put 17 years into it, and we figured out how to do it right. So when it came time to franchisi…”
Murrell: Five Guys sold 3,500 U.S. franchises within two years
“And I think within a year and a half, or two years, we sold 3500. We sold the whole United States.”
Murrell: Five Guys has built ~1,400 stores and sold out all US territory
“We've got about 1400 of them built out now, but all the territory in the United States is gone.”
Murrell: The Murrell family still owns 75% of Five Guys
“We own about 75% of the company, me and my family.”
Five Guys corporate owns roughly 450 US stores and 50% of 60 European stores
“Out of the, out of about 14, 1500 restaurants, we have a joint venture in Great Britain and France and Germany where we own With our partner, half. That's about 60 stores. And then over here, we own about 450 out of the 1400.”
Murrell: High school friends who bought early Five Guys stock became millionaires
“When I started Five Guys, I let three or four of my buddies that I went to high school with buy stock in my company, because I thought it would be a great thing for them, because they didn't have money. A little bit, they had a little bit of money, but not muc…”