History of McDonald's

The McDonald family moved from Manchester, New Hampshire to Hollywood in the late 1930s, where brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald began working as set movers and handymen at Motion-Picture studios.^[4] In 1937, their father Patrick McDonald opened "The Airdrome", a food stand, on Huntington Drive (Route 66) near the Monrovia Airport in Monrovia, California^[5] with Hot dogs being the first item sold. Then Hamburgers were ten cents, and all-you-can-drink orange juice was five cents. In 1940, Maurice and Richard ("Mac" and "Dick") moved the entire building 40 miles (64 km) east, to West 14th and 1398 North E Streets in San Bernardino, California. The restaurant was renamed "McDonald's Bar-B-Que" and had twenty-five menu items, mostly barbecue.

In October 1948, after the McDonald brothers realized that most of their profits came from selling hamburgers, they closed down their successful carhop drive-in to establish a streamlined system with a simple menu of just hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, shakes, soft drinks, and apple pie. The carhops were eliminated to make McDonald's a self-service operation. The brothers took great care in setting up their kitchen like an assembly line to ensure maximum efficiency. The restaurant's name was changed again, this time to simply "McDonald's," and reopened on December 12, 1948.

In 1952, the brothers decided they needed an entirely new building in order to achieve two goals: further efficiency improvements, and a more eye-catching appearance. They collected recommendations for an architect and interviewed at least four altogether, finally choosing Stanley Clark Meston, an architect practicing in nearby Fontana, in the fall.^[4] The brothers and Meston worked together closely. They achieved the extra efficiencies they needed by, among other things, drawing the actual measurements of every piece of equipment in chalk on a tennis court behind the McDonald house (with Meston's assistant Charles Fish).^[6] The design achieved a high level of noticeability thanks to gleaming surfaces of red and white ceramic tile, stainless steel, brightly colored sheet metal, and glass; pulsing red, white, yellow, and green neon; and last but not least, two 25-foot yellow sheet-metal arches trimmed in neon, called "golden arches" even at the design stage. A third, smaller arch sign at the roadside hosted a pudgy character in a chef's hat, known as Speedee, striding across the top, trimmed in animated neon. Further marketing techniques were implemented to change Mc Donald's from formerly a sit down restaurant to a fast food chain, they used such things as turning off the heating to prevent people wanting to stay so long, fixed and angled seating so the customer would sit over their food promoting them to eat faster, spreading the seats further apart so being less of a socialble place to dine in, and giving their customers branded cone shaped cups forcing them to hold their drink whilst eating which would speed up the eating process, many other companies followed Mc Donald's strategies to turn their own restaurants into fast food establishments including, Burgerking, Castle and Subway. ^[4]

In late 1952, with only a rendering of Meston's design in hand, the brothers began seeking franchisees.^[4] Their first franchisee was Neil Fox, a distributor for General Petroleum Corporation. Fox's stand, the first with Meston's golden arches design, opened in May 1953 at 4050 North Central Avenue at Indian School Road in Phoenix, Arizona. Their second franchisee was the team of Fox's brother-in-law Roger Williams and Burdette "Bud" Landon, both of whom also worked for General Petroleum. Williams and Landon opened their stand on 18 August 1953 at 10207 Lakewood Boulevard in Downey, California. Today the Downey stand has the distinction of being the oldest surviving McDonald's restaurant.^[7] The Downey stand was never required to comply with the McDonald's Corporation's remodeling and updating requests over the years because it was franchised not by the McDonald's Corporation, but by the McDonald brothers themselves to Williams and Landon. (Recognizing its historic and nostalgic value, in 1990 the McDonald's Corporation acquired the stand and rehabilitated it to a modern but nearly original condition, and then built an adjacent museum and gift shop to commemorate the site.)

In 1954, Ray Kroc, a seller of Multimixer milkshake machines, learned that the McDonald brothers were using eight of his machines in their San Bernardino restaurant. His curiosity was piqued, and he went to San Bernardino to take a look at the McDonalds' restaurant. He was joined by good friend Charles Lewis who had suggested to Kroc several improvements to the McDonald's burger recipe.

Believing the McDonalds' formula was a ticket to success, Kroc suggested they franchise their restaurants throughout the country. The brothers were skeptical, however, that the self-service approach could succeed in colder, rainier climates; furthermore, their thriving business in San Bernardino, and franchises already operating or planned, made them reluctant to risk a national venture.^[4] Kroc offered to take the major responsibility for setting up the new franchises elsewhere. He returned to his home outside of Chicago with rights to set up McDonald's restaurants throughout the country, except in a handful of territories in California and Arizona already licensed by the McDonald brothers. The brothers were to receive one-half of one percent of gross sales.^[4] Kroc's first McDonald's restaurant opened on April 15, 1955, at 400 North Lee Avenue in Des Plaines, Illinois, nearChicago. (It was demolished in 1984 after many remodels.) Kroc incorporated his company as McDonald's Systems, Inc., which he would later rename McDonald's Corporation.

Once the Des Plaines restaurant had become operational, Kroc sought franchisees for his McDonald's chain. The first snag came quickly. In 1956 he discovered that the McDonald brothers had licensed the franchise rights for Cook County, Illinois to the Frejlach Ice Cream Company. Kroc was incensed that the McDonalds had not informed him of this arrangement. He purchased the rights back for $25,000, five times what the Frejlacks had originally paid, and pressed forward. McDonald's grew slowly for its first three years. By 1958, there were 34 restaurants. In 1959, however, Kroc opened 68 new restaurants, bringing the total to 102 locations.