Over 13% Of People Think This Restaurant Has Better Fries Than McDonald's

In November, Mashed asked which fast food restaurant had the best french fries and 555 people across the U.S. responded. The largest consensus was McDonald's. Unsurprising, considering that in Ray Kroc's autobiography Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's he experienced the epiphany of a supplier raving about McDonald's french fries: "Ray, you know you aren't in the hamburger business at all. You're in the french fry business. I don't know how the livin' hell you do it, but you've got the best french fries in town, and that's what's selling folks your place."

However, with only 41.44 percent, McDonald's failed to command a majority of the survey. Stopping their total dominance were contenders like Five Guys with a 13.96 percent preference, Wendy's with 10.81 percent, Burger King with 8.47 percent, and In-N-Out with 6.67 percent. The other named options for the survey included Checkers, Shake Shack, and Steak 'n Shake, all of which failed to break the five percent mark. In the "Other" category, among the various answers of "none," "Fried food bad!" and "don't know," Arby's had a strong showing.

The main result is that McDonald's remains uncontested as the french fry of choice, even though they had to adulterate the apparently heavenly fries into the merely popular and appetizing one of today. But due to how Five Guys outstripped most of the competition, the other result is that Five Guy's fries must be worth consideration.

The popularity of the french fries offered by Five Guys is attested by another survey published by Business Insider in October 2019. After asking 3,000 people about which brands they patronized in the last six months, and which of the brands each visited had the best fries, they found that 46 percent of people who had eaten at Five Guys in the half year previous declared their fries the best versus the 44 percent of McDonald's.

Fans of Five Guys like its fries so much that Food Republic felt compelled to write an article detailing how they are made in 2016. "They're our passion," Chad Murrell, son of Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell, explained. So, they perfected the process down to having a preferred potato, annually ordering 140 million pounds of Idahoan Burbanks, which equals over five percent of the state's export.

The other reason the article gives for the fries' love is the portion size Five Guys uses, which is normally a 24-ounce cup of fries, or, in terms of volume, a pint and a half of fries. To the possibility of people complaining about being served too many fries, Murrell says he instructs his managers as follows: "I teach my managers that if people aren't complaining, then you're not giving them enough." 

Even though McDonald's may have come out on top in our survey, a glance at its competition shows it better not grow complacent under its deep fried laurels. Five Guys is panting right behind.