Five Guys Enterprises LLC has retained its Great Place To Work Certification™ for the ninth consecutive year, the privately held burger chain announced on June 8, covering both its corporate staff and company-owned store employees across the United States.
The certification is issued by Great Place To Work, a workplace-culture research and consulting firm, based on anonymous employee surveys that measure trust, pride, and camaraderie. A nine-year unbroken streak places Five Guys among a select cohort of restaurant operators sustaining the credential across nearly a decade of industry volatility, including pandemic-era labour disruptions and the prolonged fast-casual wage inflation cycle that has pressured margins industry-wide since 2021.
Workplace certifications have taken on added commercial weight in the restaurant sector as operators compete for hourly labour in a market where the national restaurant-industry quit rate remains elevated relative to pre-pandemic baselines. Chains with documented culture credentials have cited reduced recruitment costs and lower turnover in internal disclosures, though Five Guys has not published specific turnover or wage data alongside this announcement.
Five Guys operates more than 1,700 locations globally under a hybrid model that combines company-owned units with franchised stores. The certification applies specifically to the corporate and company-owned footprint, meaning franchised locations are assessed separately under their respective ownership structures. The chain competes in the better-burger fast-casual segment alongside Shake Shack (SHAK) and Smashburger, a category that has faced margin compression from rising beef input costs over the past two years.
No updated financial guidance, revenue figures, or expansion targets were disclosed alongside the certification announcement. Five Guys remains privately held and does not report public earnings. Industry observers tracking restaurant labour strategy and retention trends note that sustained certification programmes are increasingly cited by operators as a hedge against unit-level staffing shortfalls, particularly in suburban and secondary markets where labour pools are thinner.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.