McDonald's: The Origins of a Fast Food Empire - success stories in the world

McDonald's: The Origins of a Fast Food Empire

Success stories in the world

          McDonald’s is a real estate business. That may sound strange: After all, who has not at least once in his life entered into the glorious experience of the Happy Supper? You may know McDonald’s as that fast food chain that sells hamburgers and fries, but trust me, it’s much deeper than that. That’s why, this week at Behind the Business we’ll be looking at the world’s second-largest restaurant, McDonald’s. Few things sound as Irish as the name McDonald. It's an interesting word: the 'mac' part means son, and Donald comes from a Gaelic word meaning 'World Ruler'. Very scary, isn't it? Our two favorite ‘world rulers’ are Richard and Maurice McDonald, two brothers from New Hampshire. 

        In the 1920's they moved to California, where they started the movie after and hotdog stand, but eventually left when the Great Depression came along. Their first major success came in 1940, when they opened a barbecue joint in San Bernardino. By then, almost all restaurants were mother-and-pop centers, with their own unique flaors and recipes. The drive-ins with the roller skating wait resses were all back to back, but it didn't work well. You had to wait half an hour to get your order, and half the time they got it wrong. McDonald's sauce was no different, and although it made a profit, the brothers knew they could do better. They realized that most of their income came from just three products: hamburgers, french fries, and coke, and after working for eight years in the area, the brothers decided to make a big change.

         They threw in their many menus to focus on their big retailers, and then redesigned the entire kitchen around that. The cooking process began to look like an assembly assembly line, which allowed the brothers to complete customer orders in 30 seconds. They abandoned the idea of ​​driving and drove to the counter, and stopped using cutters and utensils altogether, replacing them with disposable paper towels. Suddenly, their restaurant became a thrill, attracting attention from all over the country. One of the people who attracted them was the boy, Ray Kroc. He was a natural-born hustler, who at the age of 15 lied and worked as a Red Cross ambulance driver during WW1. Interestingly, he served alongside Walt Disney in France, but they actually did not communicate after the war. Like many people from the post-war years Ray had has done a lot of work: jazz piano, radio DJ, paper cup vendor, naming him. In the early 1950's, she traveled across the country trying to sell milkshake machines, but she could not. One day in 1954, however, he received an order for eight of them, and it was from one of the McDonald's brothers. When Ray went to San Bernardino, he fell in love with their restaurant and just offered to sell it. By then the McDonald brothers had opened more than 20 franchise sites, but none of them did with the original restaurant: Lack of monitoring made quality preservation impossible. 

         The brothers decided to shoot Ray, and the boy did. He selected only the best franchisees and carried out his duties as a military drill. In just 6 years, Ray built 100McDonald's restaurants, while the McDonald brothers had their own joint venture. Eventually Ray got tired of them: they would reap 0.5% of all sales without doing anything while the roadblocks Ray's proposals to improve the franchise. To cut himself off, Ray found a brilliant strategy. He could buy the land for all the next restaurants to be built on, and then rent it out to those who had a right to trade with him. In this way Ray kept almost all the profits from the business, while leaving the McDonald brothers empty-handed. Of course, the brothers were not happy about that, but there was nothing they could do, and in 1961 they finally agreed to sell their franchise to Ray for $ 2.7 million. As the brothers were out of the way, Ray steppe handed over the accelerator, using all the changes he had been seeking, such as redesigning the logo and making a mascot.

       He also expanded the menu, adding Fileilet-O-Fishin 1965 and Big Mac in 1968. That same year Ray celebrated the #1000 opening store, and welcomed the modern repetition of the gold flag. In the decades that followed, McDonald's would continue to grow, not just in the US. They pioneered a breakfast cooked with the invention of Egg Mc Muffin in 1972. They also added items such as Chicken McNuggetsand Happy Meal, which will eventually make them the largest toy distributors in the world. By 1988 they had 10,000 restaurants, and although Ray was gone, the company continued to grow without him. Thanks to their impressive Hamburger University, McDonald’s franchise had highly trained executives in the fast food industry. This allowed them to sit one step ahead of competitors like Burger King and Wendy. Since then, McDonald's has continued to expand its menu to what we know today. In 2006 the franchise underwent major reconstruction since the 1970s, with the adoption of the so-called “Forever Young” design, -

      which includes restaurants with comfortable sofas and armchairs. Interestingly, today McDonald's is not the largest restaurant in the world: That title goes to Subway, which has nearly 45,000 seats compared to McDonald's 37,000. The company itself is only 15% of them, the rest are exempted by rights. Restaurants run by a 2 / 3rds company account for revenue, but that’s not the whole story. In fact, it costs more to rent your restaurant than to sit and collect rent. In 2014, for example, corporate executives estimated at $ 18.2 billion, but McDonald’s saved only $ 2.9 billion. By comparison, out of the $ 9.2 billion from the franchisees, the company kept 7.6, an astonishing 80%. So even though McDonald's seems to be blowing up the burgers, it's actually playing Monopoly instead. Thanks for reading and thank you so much to all of you out there for supporting us at Patreon! If you liked McDonald's history feel free to sign up for more and check out the full Sitemap of Behind the Business with some exciting news from other big companies. Once again, thank you very much for reading, and as always: stay smart.

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