Five Guys Bogo Deal redo: after lines and sellouts, a CEO promises to “get it right”
At some Five Guys counters last month, the five guys bogo deal turned a quick burger run into a test of patience: customers described waits nearing an hour as stores strained to keep up. The chain now says it’s ready for a second try—paired with bonuses for the crews who absorbed the first wave.
What happened when the Five Guys Bogo Deal “went bad”?
The first buy-one, get-one free offer was tied to Five Guys’ 40th anniversary celebration. It drew more demand than the company expected, and the result was disorderly: long lines, extended wait times, and some locations running out of stock.
CEO Jerry Murrell, Chief Executive Officer of Five Guys, put the misfire plainly in an interview: “We screwed the first one up so bad, we’re trying to redo it, ” he said, adding the company “got overwhelmed” and intends “to try to get it right this time. ”
For workers, the pressure was immediate and public. Murrell said employees “took the brunt of the thing, ” a phrase that captures what can happen when a national promotion meets the reality of a lunch rush, limited inventory, and a line that keeps growing.
How can customers get the five guys bogo deal this time?
Five Guys is rolling out another buy-one burger, get-one free offer, described by the company as a redo of the original promotion. The current run is scheduled from Monday through Thursday.
The company has not detailed additional mechanics in the information provided beyond the weekday window and the fact that it is a buy-one burger, get-one free deal. What is clear is the intent: a narrower time frame and a second attempt designed to avoid the shortages and delays that marked the initial day.
What is Five Guys doing for the employees who worked the first promotion?
Alongside the redo, Five Guys says it will reward employees who were on the front lines during the initial BOGO event on Feb. 17. Murrell said the company will distribute $1. 5 million in bonuses.
Five Guys has 1, 500 stores across North America, which Murrell indicated works out to $1, 000 in bonuses per store. He also said employees handled the situation better than the company felt it had the right to expect, noting they “came through pretty good. ”
Murrell characterized his message to staff with humor aimed at accountability: “Don’t shoot me in the back for screwing this up, ” he said.
The combination of a rerun promotion and worker bonuses reads as a two-part response: the brand wants another chance with customers, and it wants to acknowledge the workload that fell on teams when demand exceeded supply.
Can a redo rebuild trust after the Five Guys Bogo Deal chaos?
Five Guys is framing the second offer as a practical do-over rather than a rebranding exercise: a repeat of the promotion, confined to Monday through Thursday, with a stated goal to execute more smoothly. Murrell’s comments underscore that the company views the first attempt as a failure of preparedness, not a lack of effort from frontline teams.
For customers who remember the wait—or walked away when stores ran out—this rerun becomes a simple test: whether the next experience feels like a normal visit instead of a bottleneck. For employees, the $1. 5 million bonus pool is the company’s explicit acknowledgment that the first five guys bogo deal pushed stores past what they were set up to handle.
In the end, the redo is less about a discount than about whether a chain can learn from one crowded day and translate that lesson into a calmer line, a stocked kitchen, and a staff that feels backed up when the next rush hits.
