A new Five Guys is coming to Chapel Hill, with franchise operator Quintet Acquisitions LLC signing a lease for a 2,253-square-foot restaurant space at Aura Booth Park, the mixed-use development at the corner of Estes Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The burger chain, known for its made-to-order patties and hand-cut fries, has no firm opening date yet, but the location is expected to seat up to 60 diners and sit less than two miles from Franklin Street.
Quintet Acquisitions, based in Raleigh, already owns 24 Five Guys franchises across North and South Carolina, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. Kevin Stokes, the company's chief operating officer, told the paper the Chapel Hill restaurant could open in about three months once construction, hiring and preparation wrap up — though a photo caption in the same report pegs a possible opening later this year. Stokes described Chapel Hill as occupying a unique niche in the Triangle, and said the company plans to hire up to 35 initial employees for the location.
Wages, Hours and the Fry-Making Ritual
Those new hires will start at around $15 per hour plus tips, paid weekly, and will qualify for insurance, bonuses and secret shopper incentives, per the News & Observer's reporting. That starting pay lands well below the $22.60-per-hour living wage estimate for a single hourly worker in Orange County in 2026, a gap that underscores the broader economics facing fast-casual workers in the area, according to Chapelboro. North Carolina's statutory minimum wage, by comparison, has sat at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
The restaurant will run daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. once open, offering delivery through several phone-based apps alongside its dine-in seating. Five Guys built its reputation on fresh preparation: burgers, toppings and fries are all hand-formed or hand-cut each morning, with russet potatoes processed in 50-pound bags, cut, washed and soaked in an ice bath before frying. The fries themselves rest before being fried to order in non-hydrogenated peanut oil — a process Stokes called a labor of love and one of the most labor-intensive parts of the operation. Five Guys spokesperson Kevin Ferguson added that the food is prepared fresh every morning, and the chain touts more than 2,500 possible topping combinations across its menu of burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and shakes.
A Development Built Around a Timber Baron's Name
Founded in Arlington, Virginia, in 1986, Five Guys has grown to nearly 2,000 locations across 25 countries and has won national and international workplace awards, according to a company news release cited by the News & Observer. Quintet says it also plans to partner with local organizations, athletic teams and food pantries once the Chapel Hill store is running.
The restaurant will occupy one of four or five commercial spaces still being marketed at Aura Booth Park, which currently has just one other tenant, ISI Elite Training. The development includes more than 400 apartments and townhomes along with a large public lawn. Developer Trinsic Residential Group rebranded the project from Aura Chapel Hill to Booth Park in March 2024, naming it for J.E. Booth, a former property owner who ran a timber business on the 16-acre site, as Chapelboro reported at the time. Architectural plans from Ci Design Inc. show the full build-out includes 360 multi-family units, 44 brownstone townhomes, a 12,000-square-foot clubhouse and 12,000 square feet of retail storefronts.
Getting to this point took years of municipal back-and-forth. The Chapel Hill Town Council approved conditional rezoning for the 15-acre project on a 5-3 vote in June 2021, following extensive debate over traffic congestion at the Estes Drive and MLK Jr. Boulevard intersection. The town later marked the near-completion of the Estes Drive Connectivity Project with a ribbon-cutting in June 2024, adding multi-use paths, sidewalks and bike lanes along the corridor that now serves the development.
UNC's Carolina North Expansion Looms Large
The Five Guys lease also lands amid a much bigger shift taking shape just across the street. UNC-Chapel Hill announced in January that it will build a 230-acre satellite campus extension at Carolina North on the former Horace Williams Airport site, directly across MLK Jr. Boulevard from Aura Booth Park — the university's largest physical footprint expansion in more than 230 years. In May, the UNC Board of Trustees selected the design firm Ayers Saint Gross to draft the master land-use and infrastructure plan for 228 developable acres of that campus. The News & Observer's reporting notes the future campus could eventually add thousands of apartments, students and businesses across from the restaurant, though the seed report does not specify a construction start date.
Five Guys will also face fresh competition nearby. Permit filings show Whataburger is planning a 2,074-square-foot drive-thru restaurant on Estes Drive at the University Place redevelopment, Hoodline previously reported. That same stretch of Estes Drive has also drawn Postino, the Phoenix-based wine bar chain that leased 6,373 square feet of indoor and outdoor space at University Place as that shopping center converts into an open-air destination. Quintet has also indicated a future Five Guys location is possible in Chatham County, according to the News & Observer.
