It is one of the most American brands in the world. Operating over 30, restaurants in over countries, McDonald's is arguably the most successful restaurant in the entire world. Located in San Bernardino, California, the restaurant was actually the brothers' second venture into the food industry. Their first was a hot dog stand that the pair owned near the Santa Anita track. The original McDonald's focused on its burgers, fries and shakes, selling them for half the price and in half the time of competing restaurants.
It did this by changing the way that a hamburger shop operated. Instead of relying on waiters and waitresses, the McDonald brothers installed a self-service counter. Instead of cooking each meal to order, they prepared their burgers ahead of time and kept the food warm under high-powered heat lamps.
Readers might recognize this as the basic design of the modern fast food restaurant, but at the time it gave McDonald's an overwhelming edge against its traditional competitors. This format eventually brought the McDonald brothers to the attention of kitchen appliance salesman Ray Kroc who supplied the restaurant. Impressed by their business model, Kroc bought the rights to begin franchising McDonald's restaurants nationwide, although at the time the brothers had already licensed a small number of franchise restaurants in Arizona and California.
While Maurice and Richard McDonald created the first restaurant and its food service business model, arguably it is Kroc who founded McDonald's as the world now knows it. He took the individual restaurant from its San Bernardino location and turned it mass-market. By , Kroc had bought out the founders entirely and ran the company himself. Arguably one of the most impressive elements of McDonald's corporate history is how little modern history it has. During its first decades, McDonald's worked to establish its business model and brand.
Since that time it has found an approach that works. The company's modern history is noteworthy specifically for its relatively few items of note. McDonald's has continued its rapid growth for nearly 70 years and, while it has gained and lost customers, new restaurants have opened at a steady pace.
To a degree that few other businesses can claim, the McDonald's approach can be described as "if it ain't broke, don't fix it. McDonald's has been the target of a number of high-profile lawsuits during the company's lifetime. Most notably was the infamous "coffee lawsuit" of the early s. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History.
History Vault. The first McDonald's started slow, but caught on fast The first McDonald's—located at the corner of 14th and North E Streets, just off Route 66—started out serving up barbecue slow-cooked for hours in a pit stocked with hickory chips imported from Arkansas. Recommended for you.
How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Paul supper club and encountered a beautiful young piano player who would change his life forever. To pay the rent, the brothers wound up sweating for a paycheck at Columbia Movie Studios, hauling sets and working lights during back-breaking shifts on silent film sets. Unable to work their way into the more alluring behind-the-scenes ranks of the business like producing and directing, Dick and Mac scrimped and saved in order to partake in another, less glamorous part of the industry: screening them.
In , they purchased a theater 20 miles east of Los Angeles, in the center of a quaint, growing orange-belt burg called Glendora. Newsreels and double features turned a trip to the cinema into an all-day affair. To dissuade patrons from toting their own food to the movies, the brothers installed a snack bar in the lobby.
It seemed a sure bet. The seat Mission theater was situated just down the block from City Hall, on the tree-lined thoroughfare of Foothill Boulevard. The brothers recast the venue with an optimistic new name. But the Beacon faltered during those lean years of the Depression, and the brothers were perennially behind on their bills. They even buried some silver in the backyard as a hedge against bank closures. And so, after seven years in business, Dick and Mac sold the theater in and shifted industries from entertainment to food service.
In the next town over, Monrovia, on a decade-old thoroughfare called Route 66, they crafted some borrowed lumber into an octagonal open-air food stand and cut a deal with Sunkist to buy fallen fruit, 20 dozen oranges for a quarter.
Fortified by spectacle, satisfied day-trippers would then sidle over to the Airdrome to sate more basic needs, their thirst and hunger, with a fresh orange drink and a hot dog.
This venture was so successful that the brothers were able to import their parents from New Hampshire and open two more stands. The future, they were certain, involved appealing to drivers.
Soon, they believed, the work week would shrink to under four days, leaving Americans with abundant leisure time in which to tool around in their cars—and stop to eat.
They dismantled their stand and ventured farther east, to the growing desert city of San Bernandino, or San Berdoo as locals called it, a long-established trading hub 60 miles outside of Los Angeles. Ever thrifty, Dick and Mac outfitted these ladies in usherette uniforms recycled from the Beacon, embellishing the already theatrical flourish of service to your window. The declaration of armistice allowed the curtain to rise on an era of playful abandon, which suddenly swept over the most banal aspects of life.
Americans had been banking both their money and their desire for fun, and now they were making up for lost time. By , 40 million cars jammed the roads. Taxes collected on fuel sales allowed the construction of wide new thoroughfares offering access to large swaths of America and new possibilities for adventures.
All this meant a need for expanded services: gas stations and restaurants and motels. The journey became as critical as the destination. Eating meals outside the home became not just socially acceptable but a sign of carefree affluence.
Eating a meal delivered directly to the window of your beloved new vehicle punctuated the feeling car ownership allowed. Roads that had once been thick with orange groves were now dotted with quick-serve restaurants. While once a mound of ground beef was considered to be a tasteless and suspect blob of glop, suddenly the hamburger was de rigueur. Drive-ins became minefields of unsavory behavior, filled with loitering teenagers who smoked and blasted the jukebox and engaged in sexual shenanigans in the parking lot with the hired help.
Staff seemed to churn through a revolving door; employees would quit or no-show, regularly leaving their employers in the lurch. None of this served to diminish sales. A steady flow of customers kept a cast of 20 carhops hopping and the parking lot, with room for vehicles, brimmed to capacity, the go-to place in town for the younger set.
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