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Five Guys CEO on how chain will ‘get it right’ after BOGO offer went bad

By John Wordock

It’s take two for Five Guys.

A buy-one, get-one free offer across the burger chain last month ended in chaos with some customers reporting the deal had them waiting in line for nearly up to an hour.

Now, the Alexandria, Virginia-based burger chain is trying again, and rolling out another buy-one burger, get-one free offer.

In an interview with WTOP, CEO Jerry Murrell acknowledged the chain failed to meet demand for its initial birthday celebration.

“We screwed the first one up so bad, we’re trying to redo it,” Murrell said. “We got overwhelmed last week when we tried it. So we’re going to try to get it right this time.”

This latest BOGO deal runs from Monday to Thursday.

Five Guys also plans to reward its workers who were on the front lines Feb. 17, the date of its initial BOGO offer to celebrate the chain’s 40th anniversary. The offer sparked more demand than expected, leading to stores running out of stock and long customer wait times.

“Our employees took the brunt of the thing,” Murrell said. “And so we’re going to give them a million and a half bucks in bonuses.”

Five Guys currently has 1,500 stores across North America; so that works out to $1,000 in bonuses per store.

Overall, Murrell said his employees took the BOGO bungle in stride.

“They’re pretty good about it, but we felt bad how we really overburdened them. We had no idea we were going to get that kind of response. And they came through pretty good, I think. That’s why we’re giving them that bonus money,” he said.

And what message did he relay to his employees?

“Don’t shoot me in the back for screwing this up,” he said.

Massachusetts court hears arguments in lawsuit alleging Meta designed apps to be addictive to kids

By The Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts' highest court heard oral arguments Friday in the state's lawsuit arguing that Meta designed features on Facebook and Instagram to make them addictive to young users. The lawsuit, filed in 2023 by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, alleges that Meta did this to make a profit and that its actions affected hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Massachusetts who use the social media platforms. “We are making claims based only on the tools that Meta has developed because its own research shows they encourage addiction to the platform in a variety of ways,” said State Solicitor David Kravitz, adding that the state's claim has nothing to do the company's algorithms or failure to moderate content. Meta said Friday that it strongly disagrees with the allegations and is “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.” Its attorney, Mark Mosier, argued in court that the lawsuit “would impose liabilities for performing traditional publishing functions” and that its actions are protected by the First Amendment.
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