Jun 5, 2017 · 35m · how-i-built-this
Five Guys: Jerry Murrell
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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 NPR's How I Built This, host Guy Raz interviews Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell about transforming a single, family-funded Virginia hamburger shop into a multi-billion-dollar global restaurant chain through uncompromising quality and unconventional business decisions.
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 35.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.6 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 1.0 Guy pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:19 Jerry rejects standard franchise conventions
Jerry forcefully dismisses typical franchising orthodoxy, detailing how he told prospective franchisees they wouldn't advertise, discount food costs, or expand the minimalist menu.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 7:31 Guy challenges risking the kids' college fundGuy presses Jerry on the audacity of giving his teenage sons the choice to forgo college and gamble their tuition funds on an unproven burger joint.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 12:15 Jerry schools purchasing agent on food quality standardsJerry details how a corporate purchasing agent claimed blindfolded diners could not tell mayonnaise apart, only for the entire Murrell family to pick the exact same premium brand in a blind test.
Guy holds their own ▶ 19:10 Guy contextualizes Five Guys' early DMV footprintGuy displays deep familiarity with Five Guys' regional footprint in the late 1990s and 2000s in Virginia before the massive franchise wave began.
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 Murrell's Upbringing and Early Hardships | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Guy Raz facilitates Jerry's personal backstory with structured narrative prompts. Jerry openly shares his humble beginnings, failed early business ventures in oil and real estate, and the inspiration behind the burger concept. | |
| Founding Five Guys and Establishing the First Location | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Guy questions Jerry's unconventional choice to use his children's college fund to open a burger joint in an out-of-the-way location. Jerry explains that while it seemed crazy in hindsight, the family was fully aligned. | |
| Opening Day Success, Ingredient Selection, and Uncompromising Quality | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Jerry educates Guy on Five Guys' uncompromising product selection, recounting how the family refused to disclose ingredient costs to the kids and ran a blind mayonnaise taste test to preserve quality above profit margins. | |
| Mid-Episode Intermission and Expansion Preview | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Guy explores the financing strategy for store number two. Jerry explains his unique gross-revenue loan notes rather than selling equity, demonstrating an unorthodox but effective bootstrap model. | |
| The Franchising Leap and Global Chain Expansion | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Jerry describes his initial reluctance to franchise and details the explosion of franchise sales across the US and internationally, gently clarifying for Guy the difference between selling territories and opening physical stores. | |
| Family Milestones, Grounded Lifestyle, and Menu Additions | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | A warm concluding section reflecting on family unity, wealth, maintaining a grounded lifestyle, and Guy's closing narration about Five Guys' revenue scale and the eventual addition of milkshakes. | |
| How You Built That: Aiden Emelo and Rex Specs | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | A curated 'How You Built That' segment featuring Aiden Emelo detailing the creation and commercial success of Rex Specs protective dog goggles. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Jerry Murrell tried launching a bottled water business in the mid-1970s
“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 hard time raising money.”
Thrasher's French Fries inspired the simple Five Guys menu model
“There must have been 20 places selling boardwalk fries, but only one place had a long line, and that was Threshers. It was, the line was a hundred feet long all day long. So me and the kids, that got into our mind, like, you know, hamburgers, fries, keep it si…”
Murrell tested food viability by picking hidden, low-rent locations
“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.”
Jerry Murrell launched the first Five Guys in 1986 with $35,000
“Our first throw, we put 35,000 dollars in.”
Five Guys broke even and was profitable from its first day
“And we made money from our very first day, and we were breaking even, and we were paying our rent.”
An exclusive potato contract made an Idaho farmer a multimillionaire
“A guy named Rick Miles was a small potato dealer out there, so we got a hold of him. And we said, would you sell us potatoes? We did not know at the time that he was small. Now he's become a multimillionaire because we buy all our potatoes from him.”
Five Guys paid seven times more for hamburger buns than McDonald's
“We were paying about seven times for a hamburger bun as McDonald's was then.”
Five Guys priced early burgers three times higher than McDonald's
“I think we were selling something for like three times, four times what McDonald's was selling for, which everybody said we were crazy, we wouldn't make it that way, but we didn't let the kids know how much we were paying for any of the food.”
Five Guys targeted 30% food costs by raising prices, never cutting quality
“The kids didn't know why we were raising the prices, but 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.”
Five Guys funded early expansion using gross revenue share agreements
“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. So I said, we'll give you a certain percentage of the gross. We'll give you the money …”
Five Guys refined its restaurant model 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…”
Five Guys sold 3,500 U.S. franchise locations within two years
“And I think within a year and a half, or two years, we sold 3500. We sold the whole United States.”
Jerry Murrell and his family still own 75% of Five Guys
“We own about 75% of the company, me and my family.”
Five Guys corporate still owns 450 of its 1,400 U.S. stores
“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.”
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…”