THE popular burger chain restaurant Five Guys has finally opened its new restaurant in Basingstoke.

The launch, which took place on Monday, December 6, has seen the restaurant take over the former Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) unit which closed in September and the unit previously occupied by the Sushi Maki, which closed in February.

Khaled Seliem, district manager at the Basingstoke store was thrilled to be opening and told The Gazette that he hopes the new restaurant will be a “new light” for Basingstoke.

He said: “While everything else is shutting around us we want to be a new light coming, something new and something beautiful to try, some extra people who are smiling to give some more people another place to come to when they want to have something nice to eat and something they can trust.”

Mr Seliem was excited to see customers walk through the door.

He added: “I am absolutely excited and its euphoric to see the that as soon as we opened the doors, we are having customers already sitting down and enjoying themselves.

“They are already trying Five Guys burgers for the very first time, so I am quite excited to see people try us for the first time as well.

“I am quite happy to actually come into Basingstoke and show everyone in Basingstoke what Five Guys is all about."

Stacey Freeman, who was out celebrating a Birthday, was just one of the customers to head into Five Guys on opening day.

She said: “It is really lovely to see it opening and its simple. It is a really useful food place to open, and it also creates new local jobs.”

Residents have also been sharing their excitement on social media as they heard the news.

Diane Styles, commented on Facebook: “that has just made my wkend [weekend] so much better.”

Melanie Day said the burger restaurant is “definitely what Basingstoke needs”.

Sam Boulton, general manager of the new Basingstoke store said he was pleased to be opening, especially after the Covid -19 pandemic stopped the restaurant from opening earlier this year.

He added: “It has been a long time coming but its really good to open. It’s been great to see how they turned around the building in three weeks.

“With Covid everything kept getting pushed back, we were originally meant to open in August and then we got pushed back so its really good to finally open.

“It been a lot of hard work and we have trained 47 new employees so all of last week we had a training week in store.”

Sam is pleased with the interior of the store.

He added: “The inside is beautiful, and we have the biggest amount of glass in any Five Guys so it’s really nice that it is so open and you can see in.”

Famed for its fresh approach to fast food, the chain cooks all its food to order, including its popular fries cooked in peanut oil.

It offers burgers and hot dogs with as many free toppings as you want, as well as milkshakes with mix-ins such as bacon.