I’m a notorious cheapskate and a good cook, traits I inherited from each of my parents in different proportions. In practice that means I rarely see the inside of a restaurant.

Once every couple of weeks, though, I’ll get the urge to go out for a meal. For most of my three years in Evanston, that usually has meant a trip to the Walker Bros., or to Clarke’s or Malnati’s if I couldn’t find a ride.

Then about six months ago I wandered into Edzo’s on Sherman and Grove with a few friends. Edzo’s wasn’t perfect. It was a little dark, a hair run down, and the penny-pincher in me noticed the prices were a bit steep for fast food. But I knew right away that Edzo’s somehow worked for me.

Go in and watch owner Eddie Lakin behind the counter, chatting with customers and taking orders-it won’t be hard because he’s there every day the place is open. Look around the packed tables, and see middle-aged Evanston residents sitting next to NU sorority girls, across from North Side hipsters who crossed Howard Street for the sake of a gourmet grass-fed beefburger.

I had my problems with the place, but Edzo’s felt like a perfect fit for Evanston. I cautiously penciled a new restaurant into my rotation.

And now the Evanston City Council is about to muck everything up again.

Evanston Now reported that on Monday the city zoning board approved a proposal to open a Five Guys Burgers and Fries at 816 Church St., a whopping 0.3 miles from my Evanston burger joint of choice. If the proposal makes it past the City Council in two weeks, Five Guys will be clear to set up shop in Evanston. Apparently the Virginia chain has decided to take Chicago by storm, with 10 locations already open within 25 miles of here.

I guess I wish them well, but I can tell you that Five Guys won’t be seeing a dime of my money. Call me a homer, but I have no room for East Coast hamburgers in my diet.

It’s not just that I don’t like Five Guys food-although they cook all their burgers well done, an insult to cattle everywhere. It’s not even that I want Lakin’s restaurant to succeed. I just prefer that my neighborhood greasy spoons not be imported to Chicago by the dozen.

At some point in the chain’s history there might have been five guys like Eddie Lakin frying burgers and taking orders back at some neighborhood spot in Arlington. But at this point, Five Guys has all the local color of a Wal-Mart. All the red-and-white tile and peanut shells in the world can’t change what Five Guys is-a foreign import, another East Coast invader on the tradition of Chicago hot dog stands.

I bet they even put ketchup on the hot dogs. The spirit of Old Chicago shudders.

I don’t know if Edzo’s will ever measure up to places like The Wieners Circle or the now-defunct Demon Dogs, places where hot dogs and fries seemed to a suburban kid like me to be as much a part of the Big City as the skyline, the lake, and the mayor’s accent.

But at least I can go there and hand my six dollars to a flesh-and-blood human being-a Chicago product, no less-instead of giving it to another concept from a far-off state that I’ve never even driven through. And get a medium rare burger for my trouble.

Summer Northwestern columnist and Weinberg senior Mike Carson can be reached at [email protected].