• I dined at Shake Shack, Five Guys, and Smashburger with a $20 budget.
• I ordered similar menu items at each chain — a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake or soda.
• One chain impressed me most in terms of both flavor and value.

Fast food has long been considered a convenient, affordable meal option, but as the price of food continues to rise, even a simple order of burger and fries can quickly approach $20.

I wanted to find out how far that budget would stretch at some of the country's most recognizable fast-casual burger chains — and whether any of the meals would actually feel worth the price. So, within the same week, I visited Shake Shack, Five Guys, and Smashburger.

I ordered a similar meal at each restaurant and compared the taste, portion sizes, and overall value. Here's how it went.

Shake Shack was my first stop.

Unlike the other two chains I visited, Shake Shack is a publicly traded company. It began as a hot-dog cart in New York City's Madison Square Park before becoming a permanent kiosk in 2004.

Today, the chain has over 700 locations around the world. One recently opened near my house, so it seemed like the perfect time to give it a try.

The ShackBurger was simple but satisfying.

I ordered a single ShackBurger ($7.79), which came with an Angus beef patty, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and the chain's signature ShackSauce.

The patty was cooked well and had a nice sear, with thin, crispy edges. The cheese was also perfectly melted over the top.

I especially enjoyed the ShackSauce, which was creamy and tangy, and tasted like a blend of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

The crinkle-cut fries were crispy and well salted.

As a side, I ordered the fries ($4.99). These were crinkle-cut, nicely salted, and crispy on the outside.

I usually prefer very thin fries, but these had a satisfying crunch that won me over and paired well with the burger.

I had enough left in my budget to add a vanilla shake.

For dessert, I ordered a vanilla shake ($6.49). Although it had a pleasant, classic vanilla flavor, the consistency was thinner and more watery than I would have liked. To me, it seemed slightly overmixed.

Overall, I thought this was a solid meal for the price.

My burger, fries, and shake cost $19.27 before tax and tip. The meal wasn't particularly inventive, but everything tasted great, and I got a nice portion with dessert while staying within my budget.

Next, I visited Five Guys.

Although Five Guys is now a global chain, it remains a family-owned business. Jerry and Janie Murrell opened the first restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, in 1986.

Today, the restaurant has about 1,900 locations worldwide, including approximately 1,500 in the US.

Despite its popularity, I had never eaten there before, so I was curious to see how far my $20 would stretch.

My burger was completely customizable.

Unlike Shake Shack, Five Guys didn't serve its burgers with a standard set of toppings. Instead, I was instructed to build my own from a long list of included options.

I ordered a Little Cheeseburger ($9.25), which came with one beef patty, and I added lettuce, tomato, pickles, and ketchup. It arrived tightly wrapped in foil, which left it slightly squished.

The patty had lightly crispy edges, and I liked how the cheese melted into the meat. However, of the burgers I tried, this one reminded me the most of traditional fast food.

I couldn't quite pinpoint what created the familiar taste, but I think it was the combination of the salty, umami beef and the bun's slight sweetness.

In my opinion, the taste was reminiscent of something I'd get at McDonald's, which made the higher price harder to justify.

The small fries came in an enormous portion.

I also ordered a Little Fry ($5.30), which arrived in a brown paper bag visibly stained with grease. According to the Five Guys website, this is because the fries are soaked in water and absorb less oil when cooked.

Despite being the smallest size on the menu, the portion was massive. Adding an extra helping of fries to each bag has been a Five Guys tradition since the chain opened. This explained the surprisingly large serving and made the price feel like a better value.

They tasted good, but much of their flavor came from how oily they were. I could see myself enjoying them as a late-night indulgence, but they were greasy enough that I worried eating too many would give me a stomachache.

The higher prices left no room in my budget for a shake.

Because the burger and fries cost more than they did at Shake Shack, I couldn't fit a milkshake into my $20 budget. Instead, I ordered a Diet Coke ($3.30), bringing my total to $17.85 before tax and tip.

Although I spent less at Five Guys overall, I also received less variety for my money.

Lastly, I made my way to Smashburger.

Founded in Denver in 2007, Smashburger is owned by Jollibee Group, the Philippine-based restaurant company whose portfolio also includes Jollibee and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

Smashburger's online directory currently lists 158 open and upcoming locations in the US, and four in Canada, making it the smallest of the three chains I visited.

I had eaten here before, but it had been years since my last visit, and I had little recollection of my experience.

In my opinion, this burger tasted the freshest of the three, and the fries were delicious.

I ordered a single Classic Smash ($7.89), which came with an Angus beef patty, American cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, pickles, ketchup, and signature Smash Sauce.

I appreciated that all of my preferred toppings came standard, so I didn't have to customize anything. I also loved the addition of a signature sauce, which was creamy and tangy and gave the burger another layer of flavor.

The beef itself tasted especially fresh, with a clean, pronounced flavor that wasn't too salty or greasy. The patty could have had more pronounced lacy edges, but the seared crust still added a slightly charred finish. The cheese was nicely melted, and the soft, pillowy bun reminded me of a potato roll.

I paired my burger with the SmashFries ($4.19), which were thin, shoestring-style fries tossed in a blend of rosemary, garlic, and olive oil.

I had enough left in my budget to add on a vanilla shake.

To round out my meal, I ordered a vanilla milkshake ($6.49). It was noticeably thicker than the one I received at Shake Shack and came with a spoon.

It had a creamy, milky flavor, but otherwise tasted like fairly standard vanilla ice cream. It wasn't especially memorable, but I enjoyed the consistency.

My burger, fries, and shake cost $18.57 before tax and tip, allowing me to get a complete meal with dessert while staying comfortably within my budget.

Overall, I thought my meal from Smashburger offered the best combination of taste and value.

Before tax and tip, I spent $19.27 at Shake Shack, $17.85 at Five Guys, and $18.57 at Smashburger.

Shake Shack gave me a complete meal with dessert within my budget. Nothing stood out as especially memorable, but it felt like a solid, reliable option at a reasonable price.

Five Guys had the lowest total and provided by far the most fries. However, its more expensive burger left no room in my budget for a shake, and the greasy fries and standard burger didn't feel worth the price. Although I spent less overall, I felt like I received the least variety for my money.

For $0.70 less than Shake Shack, Smashburger gave me a burger, fries, and a thicker milkshake. Its burger tasted the freshest, and the thin, rosemary-seasoned fries were easily my favorite.

Ultimately, Smashburger made my $20 stretch the furthest without sacrificing taste. It offered the best meal, the most distinctive flavors, and the strongest overall value.

Business Insider reached out to Shake Shack, Five Guys, and Smashburger for comment.

The Pentagon is treating the spate of mysterious freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at military bases across the United States in August as a suspected hack, according to four officials familiar with the matter.

One of the officials said the military investigators were in touch with their French counterparts about a similar cyberattack on commercial freezers that disrupted supermarkets there earlier this month.

Reuters was not able to ascertain how far along the Pentagon’s investigation was or whether it had reached any conclusions about what happened or who might be responsible. When asked about the investigation, the Pentagon said that a unit of Cyber Command — the military’s cyber force — was “working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners.” It did not elaborate.

The US Army Criminal Investigation Division said its Cyber Field Office was involved in the investigation and that it was working with French law enforcement to better understand “the refrigeration outages in Europe.”

Military investigators examine suspected sabotage

The late August malfunctions in the United States affected at least six commissaries — on-base stores where military personnel buy their food — according to a Reuters review of the military bases’ contemporaneous Facebook posts and website updates. In at least one of the cases, the freezers did not simply stop working; the cooling units’ temperatures were cranked up overnight, yielding mounds of wilted or melted food in the morning.

The Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Facebook account explained on August 26 that its freezer “went into defrost mode where it heated up all the food. Trust us when we say it was ‘spoiled.'”

The spate of rogue freezer behavior and the possibility of cybersabotage were first reported on August 28 by a recently created blog called Signal and Silence. The involvement of military investigators and their contacts with the French were reported by the newspaper Stars and Stripes and Britain’s Daily Telegraph, respectively. The news that the investigators were treating the incident as a suspected hack is being reported here for the first time.

The French Embassy in Washington did not return a message seeking comment.

French cyberattack offers possible clues

If confirmed to be a cyberattack, the refrigerator malfunctions would be another illustration of how vulnerable critical infrastructure — in this case cold storage — can be to hackers.

The French freezer cyberattack overrode the temperature controls on commercial cooling units in more than 350 establishments, leading to dramatic scenes as supermarkets’ frozen food aisles were cleared of spoiled merchandise.

The French hack involved cranking the temperature inside the units up rather than merely knocking them offline, similar to what happened in Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Some French refrigeration units had the temperature turned up so high they caught fire. The French attack’s total costs could add up to tens of millions of euros nationwide, one supermarket owner estimated earlier this month.

Outdated technology leaves refrigeration systems vulnerable

The French cyberattack appeared to have ​been easy to pull off, experts previously told Reuters. The Danish firm Danfoss, whose controllers ran made many of the stricken units, said that many of the controllers were obsolete or were running outdated firmware, which could have made it easy for hackers to break in. Reuters could not establish whether Danfoss or any other brand of freezer controller were in use at the affected US bases. Danfoss did not return messages seeking comment.

Hackers pose growing threat to food supplies

Refrigeration plays a critical role in the distribution of fresh food and the sabotage of cold storage facilities over the internet has long been seen as a nightmare scenario, alongside the loss of electricity or water plants.

Earlier this year, the Global Food Safety Initiative, an industry body, called on food safety professionals and IT leaders to work together to ensure “robust cybersecurity” for refrigeration technology, noting that “a hacked cooling system is just as dangerous as a broken one.”

Hackers have previously sabotaged fridges and freezers both in the United States and elsewhere.

Danfoss has said that, in 2022, hackers either targeted or broke into supermarkets in Russia and Israel that were using obsolete versions of its cold storage controllers. In December of last year, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles accused a Ukrainian woman of being part of a hacker group that knocked out the refrigeration at a meatpacking facility in 2024, ruining more than 2,000 pounds of meat.

The root problem was that controllers that were initially conceived as isolated interfaces that would be serviced by an in-person technician were increasingly being connected to the internet, said Bill Moore, the chief executive of industrial cybersecurity firm Xona Systems. Concerns about online exposure were not unique to cooling systems, he said, but they could have particularly serious consequences there.

“It can definitely disrupt the supply chain for food,” he said.

As artificial intelligence technologies grow ever more powerful, so do the risks they pose and with them the urgency of regulating AI. In July 2026, OpenAI’s advanced models hacked into AI company Hugging Face’s systems during internal cybersecurity evaluations by communicating through unauthorized channels and working around safeguards developers had imposed on the models. In […]

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