Five Guys CEO says he gave away $1.5M in bonuses so no one would shoot him
(Gray News) — The CEO of Five Guys said he gave out $1.5 million in bonuses so that no one would shoot him.
In a recent interview with Forbes, Jerry Murrell said he issued bonuses to his employees after a company-wide birthday promotion that turned out to be a disaster.
He joked that the bonuses were not given out of selflessness, but because he was worried about his life.
“I didn’t want anybody shooting me in the back or anything after the first day, because we really screwed it up. We had no idea that we were going to get that kind of response,” he told Forbes.
The issue started when Five Guys ran a buy-one-get-one deal on Feb. 17 to celebrate its 40th birthday.
But Murrell said restaurants were not prepared for the massive number of customers coming in. Stores ran out of food as lines stretched out the door and employees were overwhelmed.
Murrell said Five Guys rarely runs promotional deals, so it was not prepared for the response it got.
Murrell said the response was so overwhelming that sales increased 130 percent that day.
As a thank you for their hard work, Murrell distributed $1,000 per store in bonuses to overwhelmed workers who held things together during the promotion.
“They worked so hard. They were so overwhelmed,” he told Forbes.
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