Secret Menu Items You Can Order At Five Guys

There's a lot to love about Five Guys, that build-to-order burger chain based out of Washington D.C.  

There's those bins of free, in-shell peanuts you can crack open and snack on as you wait. There's those nifty Coca-Cola Freestyle machines that let you invent your own soda flavors — like Diet Coke raspberry or ginger ale fruit punch vanilla. Then there's the fact that burger patties are formed by hand, fresh to order and never frozen.

But perhaps the greatest thing that Five Guys has going for it is its menu of free toppings, which enables you to customize your order any way you like You want a bacon burger topped with grilled mushrooms and A.1. sauce? You got it. A grilled cheese smothered in hot sauce? It's yours. A milkshake with bacon, peanut butter, salted caramel, Oreo pieces, and coffee? If you say so, you beautiful madman. 

Five Guys' unlimited free toppings policy has lead to the birth of a "secret menu" with creative recipes dreamed up by its very own fans. These tasty items go way beyond the standard burger combinations and stretch their topping menu to its limits. But don't thinking you're getting anything past them by ordering one of these items — Five Guys themselves say there's over 250,000 ways to order from their menu. You probably never thought of any of these combos before... but there's a good chance they have.

One fateful afternoon in 2009, President Barack Obama walked into a Five Guys. Our former commander in chief's healthy eating habits have been well-documented, but he is also known to have a weakness for a good burger.

On this particular day, Obama had a hankering for Five Guys. He placed several orders for his staff, and placed his own order: a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos, and mustard — thus making secret menu history forever.

Today, you can order Obama's favorite burger — aka "The Presidential" — at any Five Guys location. Of course, the staff may or may not know the details of Obama's order off the top of their heads, so instead of simply asking for the Presidential and getting a blank stare, you may instead want to specify you want a cheeseburger with the aforementioned toppings. "A cheeseburger with lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos, and mustard" may not run off the tongue as smoothly as "the Presidential," but the delicious, Obama-beloved burger is worth the additional verbal exercise.

Here's another cool thing about Five Guys: they're a burger joint that serves hot dogs. And not just any hot dogs: these are all-beef, kosher, premium franks from Hebrew National. Note that hot dogs are cooked on the same grill as beef, so although the dogs are kosher, the way they're prepared is not.

Franks are split and grilled lengthwise to caramelize the exterior. The official Five Guys menu offers four varieties, including "kosher style,"  cheese, bacon, and bacon-cheese. But fans have gotten imaginative with the toppings and come up with some pretty tasty secret menu hot dog alternatives. Notably, Food Network celebrity chef Justin Warner dreamed up the Breaking Windy City Dog, which puts a cajun twist on a classic Chicago-style dog. Like a classic Chicago hot dog, the BWCD tops a frankfurter with pickles, tomatoes, relish, green peppers, and mustard. The chef adds hot sauce and a sprinkle of cajun seasoning. To order, ask for a kosher style hot dog with all the aforelisted ingredients. As for cajun seasoning on the side so you can sprinkle it on yourself.

For all its charms, Five Guys isn't exactly the most diet-friendly restaurant. The burger joint is often criticized for its giant portions of fries, which pack in as much as 1,314 calories for a large (compared to the 510 calories in a large order of fries at McDonald's). Their other menu options aren't exactly health food items either; their hamburger, for example, packs in 840 calories and more than 19.5 grams of saturated fat — and that's without the toppings.

That said, there are "keto" and "low-carb" friendly options at Five Guys for health-conscious fans with a bit of resourcefulness. Take the "burger bowl," for instance, beloved by fitness-minded, Five Guys-loving bloggers and Instagrammers. To score this low-carb secret menu item, ask for a bunless Little bacon cheeseburger with pickles, grilled onions, and green peppers. Steer clear of ketchup, which is loaded with carbs, and go for mayo, mustard, and/or hot sauce on top. The Five Guys' Little bacon cheeseburger bowl should set you back less than 500 calories and two net carbs.

In-N-Out, another burger chain with a cult following, has a fairly extensive secret menu of its own. Among the most beloved are the not-so-secret "Animal Style" fries and burgers. An Animal Style burger includes mustard grilled directly into the patty, in addition to lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, and special sauce. Similarly, Animal Style fries come showered in melted cheese, grilled onions, and special sauce.

Animal Style may be the invention of In-N-Out, but you can order burgers and fries at Five Guys in the style of In-N-Out Animal Style. To order an Animal Style-inspired burger, ask for a cheeseburger topped with an extra slice of cheese, grilled onions, tomatoes, and pickles (you can try and ask if they'll grill mustard into the patty, but past attempts have been unsuccessful). For Animal Style-style fries, order fries topped with cheese and grilled onions.

To DIY In-N-Out's special sauce, mix mayo, ketchup, and relish together, then douse your burger or fries in the heavenly mixture. You can have the staffers top your burger or fries with mayo, ketchup, and relish themselves, but we recommend ordering the sauces separately and mixing up them yourself to get the consistency right.

Beloved by Brits, the English chip butty — also known as a "chip sandwich" or "chip cob" — is essentially a french fry sandwich. The carby concoction is traditionally made by serving french fries on white bread with a generous slathering of cold butter. Different variations may also call for ketchup or malt vinegar.

Maybe you're carb-loading for a marathon. Maybe you're curious about British pub cuisine. Or maybe you're just really drunk. Whatever your reason might be, if you find yourself craving a french fry sandwich, Five Guys can make it for you. To order a Five Guys-style chip butty, order a Little order of fries inside of an untoasted bun,and try to ignore any perplexed looks from the other customers. You might not be able to order butter or malt vinegar, but you can top your chip butty with plenty of ketchup to break up what is otherwise just a plain white pile of starch — and there's plenty of malt vinegar right there on the table.

Wrapped in bacon and stuffed with cream cheese, jalapeno poppers are an irresistible tex-mex appetizer. The secret menu jalapeno popper at grilled cheese from Five Guys delivers everyone's favorite fiery appetizer in sandwich form.

You can try the jalapeno popper sandwich yourself the next time you pop by the burger joint by ordering a grilled cheese sandwich. But instead of stopping at a mild-mannered grilled cheese, ask if your sandwich can be topped with extra cheese, bacon, and jalapenos. The applewood-smoked bacon will give your grilled Kraft Singles a nice crunch while the fresh jalapenos add a bite.

Fair warning: the fresh jalapenos can pack some heat. If you have timider taste buds, we suggests pairing it with the extra-chunky chocolate peanut butter milkshake listed above. The cool vanilla ice cream will soothe your fiery taste buds, the bacon crumbles will complement the bacon strips in the sandwich, and the overload of sugar and carbs will likely cause you to fall into a tranquil, post-meal nap in your Five Guys booth.

This one we found deep in the bowels of Reddit. It was shared by a Five Guys cook, who assures everyone that Five Guys cooks will usually "make whatever you want" as long as they have the ingredients. The Artery Annihilator fuses the Five Guys hot dog and bacon cheeseburger into one, beautiful tower of meat.

To order an Artery Annihilator, ask for a bacon cheeseburger and request that a hot dog be sliced in half and laid on top of the patty. Pile on desired ingredients. If artery annihilation truly is your goal, why hold back? Slather on the mayo and barbecue sauce and pair with a large order of fries and a bacon milkshake with whipped cream (might as well pour some vodka in there, if you have any). Pay a friend to mash up your meal and feed you so you don't accidentally burn off any calories while lifting food to your mouth or chewing. Smoke a celebratory cigar or two when finished. Disclaimer: Don't actually do all that, ever. But the sandwich is probably tasty.