When Five Guys’ 40th birthday promotion collapsed under its own weight, most CEOs would have issued a polished apology and moved on. Instead, Jerry Murrell wrote his employees a check—1,500 of them to be exact. Now, the 82-year-old longtime founder of the franchise joked it wasn’t altruism: he was worried about his safety.
“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 joked.
In a candid phone call with Fortune, Murrell wove his quick wit between genuine concern for his employees, following what would otherwise be a logistical nightmare that would send CEOs reeling to their crisis comms teams. Instead, Murrell stepped up, apologized first to his employees and then to the public, and said they would do it again—this time, correctly.
“I was gonna buy my wife a new fur coat, and I spent it on [the bonus] instead,” Murrell said in a dry pan usually reserved for the likes of Mel Brooks and Leslie Nielsen. “She still looks at me like I’m stupid. But I thought it was worth it. They worked so hard. They were so overwhelmed.”
Jerry and his wife Janie, featured here in burger hats. She did not get her fur coat. Katherine Frey/The The Washington Post via Getty Images
