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  • 11 hours ago
Five Guys's BOGO burger promotion in February started off as a 40th birthday celebration for the company, but by the end of the day, stores were out of food, lines were out the door, and workers were overwhelmed.

Fortune News Editor Catherina Gioino spoke to CEO Jerry Murrell about the botched BOGO—and the $1.5 million he gave to staff to make up for the chaos.

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Transcript
00:00Five Guys employees were so stressed out during the chain's BOGO promotion that the CEO gave them $1.5 million
00:05as an I'm sorry gift.
00:07Five Guys turned 40 on February 17th, and to celebrate, the chain had a buy one get one free burger
00:13promotion.
00:14Normally, you would go in, buy a burger, get one for free.
00:17However, this time around, workers were so overwhelmed because lines ran out the door, people were waiting in line for
00:23hours, and food just simply ran out.
00:25I spoke to Jerry on the phone, who started Five Guys in 1986 along with his wife Janie and their
00:30five sons.
00:31That's where the name comes from.
00:32Jerry felt really bad for his employees.
00:35Five Guys expected the promotion to increase sales by 20%, but by the end of the day, sales were up
00:40130%.
00:42Jerry felt like he screwed up, and he genuinely felt bad for his employees.
00:45And after seeing what his employees went through on the front lines, he felt like he owed them this $1
00:50.5 million bonus.
00:52Not only did he want to make it up to his employees, he also wanted to make sure customers felt
00:57happy too.
00:58That's why they ran a 40th birthday afterparty on March 9th through 12th.
01:03And we made sure that the promo still was active, so anyone who didn't get their burgers now had a
01:08chance.
01:09Although the chain doesn't have any future BOGO promotions announced, you can bet that Jerry won't ever let the BOGO
01:16birthday burger bedlam happen again.
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