Five Guys founder and CEO Jerry Murrell is handing out $1.5 million in bonuses to employees at the chain’s U.S. locations — and his explanation for why is turning heads.
Murrell told Fortune magazine in a Wednesday interview that he distributed the funds after the burger chain’s 40th anniversary buy-one-get-one-free promotion in February went sideways, drawing far more customers than the company had prepared for.
“I didn’t want anybody shooting me in the back or anything after the first day, because we really screwed it up,” Mr. Murrell told Fortune. “We had no idea that we were going to get that kind of response.”
The remark is widely understood as a reference to Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in 2025.
The Feb. 17 BOGO deal, intended to celebrate the chain’s milestone anniversary, quickly overwhelmed locations nationwide. The promotion crashed the Five Guys app and caused several restaurants to end the offer early, according to frustrated customers on social media.
Five Guys issued an apology on Feb. 18, acknowledging that “hardworking crews were placed in a difficult situation” and that some locations ran out of food and had to close early. Online and app ordering also experienced disruptions that prevented some customers from redeeming the offer.
The chain issued a second apology on March 9, writing: “You visited our restaurants in overwhelming numbers, and we weren’t ready for you. We didn’t meet our own standards, and that’s not something we take lightly. So, we’re asking for a do-over.”
Five Guys then brought back the BOGO deal from March 9–12, branding the makeup promotion the “40th After Party” and extending it across several days rather than a single day.
Mr. Murrell said he wrote checks to roughly 1,500 U.S. store employees, amounting to approximately $1,000 per worker. He also quipped that the money had originally been earmarked for a fur coat for his wife.
“She still looks at me like I’m stupid,” he told Fortune. “But I thought it was worth it. They worked so hard. They were so overwhelmed.”
According to the Five Guys website, the chain employs more than 30,000 people across 1,900 locations in 28 countries, with just over 1,500 of those locations in the United States.
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