Jerry Murrell, the CEO of burger chain Five Guys, gave $1.5 million in bonuses to his staff ostensibly to protect his safety after an in-store promotion didn’t go as planned, joking that he didn’t want to meet the same fate as murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“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,” Murrell said to Fortune in an interview published Wednesday.
Murrell, the 82-year-old CEO and founder of Five Guys, was seemingly referring to the 2024 murder of Thompson, who was fatally shot in the back while walking out of a hotel in New York City.
Murrell’s bonuses came after Five Guys hosted a buy-one-get-one-free special to celebrate the chain’s 40th anniversary on Feb. 17 that went awry. The event was so successful that several stores ran out of food and had to close early.
“You visited our restaurants in overwhelming numbers, and we weren’t ready for you,” Five Guys said in a March 9 news release. “We didn’t meet our own standards, and that’s not something we take lightly. So, we’re asking for a do-over.”
