Five Guys Burgers and Fries says it’s taking a closer look at its downtown Vancouver location after a Daily Hive reader shared video footage of a mouse using a small hole in the front door to go in and out of the restaurant.
On August 9, the mouse was seen through the glass window of the Robson Street location. At first, the rodent darted among the restaurant tables before squeezing through a gap in the front door and running onto the sidewalk.
Brooke Blankenship, public relations and marketing coordinator for Five Guys, thanked the reader for bringing the issue to their attention.
“It is very concerning, and we are investigating this right away,” she said.
Vancouver Coastal Health keeps tabs on hygiene at restaurants in Vancouver with annual inspections. The most recent report on the Robson Five Guys from November 2023 didn’t note any pest activity at the restaurant, though it did take issue with some refrigeration practices and the visibility of its permit to operate.
Mike Landry, owner of Westside Pest Control, told Daily Hive last year that the mouse population in Vancouver is thriving. That’s thanks in part to the city’s mild climate, where mice can live both indoors and outdoors year-round.
They also make use of the smallest of holes to find their way to food. Landry said they can squeeze through an opening as small as six millimetres.
BC banned the use of certain rat poisons in January 2023, leaving residents and business owners to get creative when it comes to deterring the rodents. Landry often relies on traps and said placing them perpendicular to a wall instead of parallel can help grab a mouse on the first try — rather than leaving them injured or scared and knowing to avoid a trap in the future.