McDonald's brothers biography. World's first McDonald's restaurant
Remember, we read and argued about? And let's look at the very first institution under this sign in the world.
The very first establishment of the brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened in 1940 in the California town of San Bernardino. It was an ordinary cafe for motorists. It brought them about $200,000 a year, but Richard and Maurice were constantly looking for ways to improve it. The very first restaurant was called "McDonald's Famous Barbeque" and offered its visitors about forty types of fried meat.
In the photo above, you can see exactly that original restaurant in its original form.
When, in 1948, the brothers realized that their main income comes from selling hamburgers, a brilliant idea came to their heads. The step was risky, but they nevertheless decided and converted the interior of the restaurant into a conveyor for the production of hamburgers. The menu also changed, now it had several types of hamburgers, orange juice and chips, and a year later the menu was replenished with french fries and, beloved by all of America, Coca-Cola. A modest menu and fast assembly line service brought the price of hamburgers down to 15 cents, much lower than other establishments in the city were offering. The sandwiches sold out with a bang!
They are the first in the world to come up with a completely new fast food concept based on fast service, low prices and high sales volume. They introduced self-service in the hall and redesigned the kitchen, changing the equipment with the expectation of mass production and faster servings. This drastically reduced the prices of hamburgers, which formed the basis of their assortment.
Word of their success quickly spread, and after an article about their restaurant was published in American Restaurant Magazine in 1952, they received 300 inquiries a month from all over the country. Their first licensee was Neil Fox, and the brothers decided that his car-lover's restaurant in Phonex, Arizona would be the prototype of the chain they wanted to create. The building, clad in red and white tiles, with a sloping roof and golden arches on the sides, became the model for the first "wave" of McDonald's restaurants to appear in the country and a permanent symbol of the industry.
Crawling around their tennis court, the McDonald brothers chalked out an assembly line-style kitchen that was twice the size of their first restaurant's kitchen. By studying the movement of workers during the cooking process, they were able to arrange the equipment in the most efficient way. The rain washed away the chalk, and the brothers had to redo everything anew, improving the design. The success of their business in San Bernardino was beyond their dreams, but the potential of the franchising concept, which they pioneered, was far from being fully exploited.
For just a thousand dollars, licensees were given the name "McDonald's," a basic description of the speedy service system, and could, within one to two weeks, use the services of Art Bender, the brothers' first front desk worker at the new restaurant, who helped the licensees get started. But in 1954, Ray Kroc, a salesman for the sale of milkshake machines, saw with his own eyes the restaurant of the McDonald brothers. The fast food restaurant industry was ready to take off.
In 1955, the McDonald brothers presented licenses that allowed them to open a chain of fast food restaurants in neighboring cities. The list of cities where it was planned to open branches included Phoenix, Arizona and Downey. One of the very first restaurants is located in Downey today. When it came to opening a chain of restaurants across America, the brothers partnered with Ray Kroc, who sold milkshake machines. McDonald's became a corporation in April 1955. The first restaurant, which was already opened by McDonald's, was called Original McDonald's, it was from it that the history of success and popularity of the world famous network began. Coca-Cola has become a partner of McDonald's, one might say, since its inception.
Exterior of the first store in Des Plaines, Illinois.
Ray Kroc was 52 years old. At this age, many are thinking about retirement. And Kroc founded the company that became the McDonald's we know today. Kroc, who dropped out of school at 15 to work as a Red Cross ambulance driver during World War I, was a dreamer… a salesman who was constantly looking for a finished product to sell. He started out selling paper cups to street vendors in Chicago, dabbled in real estate in Florida, and finally built a good business as the exclusive distributor of the Multimixer cocktail machines. It was the Multimixers that first brought him to the McDonald Brothers hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino, California. After all, if he could figure out how they were able to sell 20,000 cocktails a month, how many more cars could he sell them? But when Kroc showed up at the brothers' restaurant one morning in 1954 and saw a fast-moving line of customers buying whole bags of burgers and fries, he had only one thought: “This system will work everywhere. Everywhere!"
The McDonald brothers did not want to personally control the expansion of their concept's business throughout the country, so Ray Kroc became their exclusive franchise agent. The great salesman has found his final product. On March 2, 1955, Kroc founded a new franchise company called McDonald's System, Inc. On April 15, 1955, his McDonald's opened in Des Plains, Illinois, with the help of Art Bender, who provided patrons with the first McDonald Brothers hamburger and now Ray Kroc's first McDonald's hamburger. After that, Bender opened Croc's first licensed McDonald's restaurant in the California city of Fresno and retired, being the owner of seven restaurants.
Photo taken in 1955, this is Ray Kroc's first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
Shortly after their new restaurant opened, it became apparent that they hit the mark and that was exactly what the Americans wanted. The name of the restaurant quickly spread among the drivers, and its red-and-white tiled building with a sloping roof and golden arches on the sides began to attract more and more visitors.
But Kroc understood that in order to grow further, he needed to buy out the business from the McDonald brothers in order to remove the contractual restrictions under which he worked. Despite the successful operation of the restaurants, Kroc's net income in 1960 was only $77,000, and long-term debts were $5.7 million. The brothers requested $2.7 million in cash, of which $700,000 went to taxes, leaving each of them with a million. Reasonable pay for the time, the brothers thought, for inventing the fast food industry. In 1961, Kroc managed to get a loan against the company's real estate. Although it ended up costing him $14 million to pay off the loan, he bought the ability to control his growing system.
Team McDonald's in Des Plaines.
That same year, in the basement of a restaurant in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, he opened the University of Hamburgerology, a classroom for new licensees and restaurant directors, which has grown into an international executive training center using advanced teaching methods.
Growth milestones in the US were turnover, number of restaurants, number of hamburgers sold, and the establishment of quality, service culture, cleanliness, and affordability (CC&D) standards never seen before in the fast food industry. By 1963 we were selling one million hamburgers a day, the billionth hamburger Ray Kroc sold to Art Linkletter during a television show.
The first national meeting of restaurant licensees was held in Hollywood, Florida in 1965 to commemorate the chain's tenth decade. And in the same year, McDonald's became a joint-stock company, putting its shares on public sale at a price of $ 22.5. Within weeks, stock prices soared to $49 a share.
For Ray Kroc, years without a paycheck paid off. The first shares he sold were worth $3 million, and his remaining shares were worth $32 million. Even June Martino, Kroc's longtime associate and secretary at the Multimixer Company, shared in his success, selling $300,000 worth of stock and leaving an additional 5 million shares. A year later, on July 5, 1966, McDonald's was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, a major achievement for a hamburger restaurant chain. In 1967, the price of a McDonald's hamburger went up from 15 cents to 18 cents, the first increase since the McDonald brothers set the price at 15 cents two decades earlier. And the following year, the thousandth restaurant opened in Des Plains, Illinois, not far from Kroc's first restaurant.
Ray Kroc has kept the McDonald brothers' principles: limited but high-quality menus, assembly-line portioning, and fast and friendly service, all while adding the highest standards of cleanliness. The quality of food, accessibility, culture of service and cleanliness to this day remain the main principles of the McDonald's chain of fast food restaurants, which have won success around the world.
By 1970, almost 16,000 McDonald's restaurants in all 50 states and 4 countries outside of the United States had a turnover of $587 million. That same year, a restaurant in Bloomington, Minnesota became the first to reach $1 million in annual sales, and a restaurant in Waikiki, Hawaii became the first restaurant to serve breakfast. The following year, the first McCity opened in Chula Vista, California. McDonald's crossed the billion dollar turnover mark in 1972, and the stock split occurred for the fifth time, bringing 100 shares of the original 1965 block to 1,836 shares.
In 1975, the first McAuto restaurant appeared in Sierra Vista, Arizona. This new service system now accounts for almost half of the turnover of all McDonald's restaurants in the United States. That same year, the company's 3,076 restaurants operating in 20 countries totaled $2.5 billion in turnover. The following year, the 20 billionth hamburger was sold.
The exterior of the first fast food restaurant with its neon arches, 1955
In 1977, Ray Kroc was appointed senior chairman of McDonald's, and Fred Turner, a grill worker at Kroc's first restaurant, was appointed chairman of the board. In the same year, more than 1,000 restaurants exceeded $1 million in turnover, and 11 restaurants crossed the $2 million mark. By the time of the silver anniversary in 1980, 6,263 restaurants in 27 countries were doing $6.2 billion in sales and over 35 billion hamburgers had been sold. On January 14, 1984, Ray Kroc died, fulfilling his McDonald's dreams. In the same year, his company's turnover exceeded $10 billion, 50 billion hamburgers were sold, and there were 8,300 restaurants in 36 countries. A McDonald's restaurant opened every 17 hours in the world and the average restaurant had an annual turnover of $1,264,000. By 1990, trade had risen to $18.7 billion and the number of hamburgers sold had exceeded 80 billion. 11,800 McDonald's restaurants operated in 54 countries around the world.
And in 1990, the management of the company changed for only the third time in its history: Fred Turner became Senior Chairman, passing the baton to Mike Quinlan, appointed chairman and senior executive, who began working at McDonald's part-time in 1963 as a sorting clerk mail.
Fred Turner and Ray Kroc review the project of the future restaurant
It was a testament to its consistent and consistent performance over the years that McDonald's was the only company in the Standard & Poor 500 to report 100 consecutive quarters year on year of growth in revenue, earnings, and earnings per share since 1965. Not surprisingly, Better Investing Magazine named McDonald's the most popular company and its common stock the most common.... And Life magazine named Ray Kroc one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century.
Grounds of the first McDonald's restaurant, San Bernardino, California
Ray Kroc's dreams of growing the company in the United States were fully realized, but the story had only just begun. McDonald's is taking over the world. While experts were surprised at the rapid development of the hamburger chain in the United States, our company was preparing another surprise for them in the form of expanding the system outside the United States.
The first restaurant outside the US June 1, 1967, in Canada, and the race began. Today there are over 1,000 restaurants in Canada. When Canada's McDonald's introduced pizza to the menu in 1992, they quickly became the world's largest pizza retailer.
First ever McDrive hosted in Sierra Vista, Arizona
On April 29, 1988, an agreement was signed in Moscow on the establishment of a joint venture between the Canadian company McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited and the Main Directorate of Public Catering of the Moscow City Executive Committee - Moscow-McDonald's.
The authorized capital of the future joint venture was 14.952 million rubles.
It was planned that the total number of McDonald's catering establishments in Moscow would be increased to 20.
In 1988, Moscow newspapers reported that the first Moscow McDonald's would employ students and schoolchildren, most of them on a part-time basis. “Given the intensive work, the pay will be high - two to two and a half rubles per hour,” wrote the newspapers of those years.
On May 3, 1989, construction began on the first McDonald's restaurant on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow, and on January 31, 1990, it was opened.
At dawn on January 31, 1990, over 5,000 people gathered in front of the restaurant, waiting for the opening. On the first day of operation, the McDonald's restaurant on Pushkinskaya Square served more than 30 thousand visitors, setting a world record for the first working day in the history of McDonald's. Previously, the world record belonged to a Budapest restaurant - 9 thousand 100 visitors
The first fast food establishment had 700-900 seats inside the building and another 200 in the summer outdoor area.
In 1990, a hamburger cost 1.5 rubles, and a Big Mac cost 3.75 rubles, while the average salary of a Soviet person was 150 rubles. For comparison: a monthly bus ticket cost 3 rubles.
The second and third restaurants of the chain opened in 1993 on Stary Arbat and Gorky Street (now Tverskaya Street).
The first restaurant outside the capital was opened in St. Petersburg in 1996.
Also in 1996, McDonald's launched Russia's first in-car customer service concept, McAuto, which operates on the principle of multiple windows, which allows you to order and receive products while in your car.
In 1992, McComplex was opened for the production of semi-finished products for a chain of restaurants, producing about 70 million kilograms of products per year.
Today, there are 218 McDonald's restaurants in Russia, which serve more than 600,000 visitors daily.
1971 also saw the opening of the first restaurants in Germany and Australia. Today there are over 600 restaurants in Germany, and about 635 in Australia. In France and England, the first restaurants appeared in the early 1970s, there are currently 625 enterprises in France, and more than 700 in England.
And here is the very oldest McDonald's in Downey, California. The restaurant hasn't changed much since it opened in 1953.
Richard McDonald opens the first roadside McDonald's Bar-B-Que in San Bernardino at 14th and East Streets, where it is still located.
The McDonald brothers decided to renovate their cafe and change the menu, which from now on contains only nine dishes. The main course of the menu was a 15 cent hamburger, with which, for only 5 cents, visitors could get a huge glass of orange juice.
The famous french fries appear at McDonald's and become a bestseller.
Ray Kroc visits McDonald's and becomes partners with Richard and Maurice (also known as Dick and Mac). Soon Ray is already an official franchise agent. He introduces a milkshake to the restaurant menu.
In Des Plaines, Illinois, thanks in large part to Ray Kroc, a second McDonald's opens. On the opening day of the restaurant, its revenue was $366.12. More than 700 McDonald's will open over the next decade.
23 years after the opening of the first restaurant, the 500th McDonald's opens in Toledo, Ohio.
In 1965, McDonald became a formal corporation, selling its shares publicly for $22.50 a share. The initial sale of shares took place on the day of the 10th anniversary of the opening of the network.
1963
Ronald McDonald entered the business, the net profit of the McDonald's network exceeded $ 1 million.
With the opening of the first McDonald's restaurants in Canada and Puerto Rico, McDonald's has become an international chain. This process has continued uninterrupted ever since, eventually McDonald's branches are open today in 118 different countries.
The famous Big Mac appears at McDonald's.
In addition to the lunch menu, McDonald's also has a breakfast menu, which includes sandwiches and an egg called McMuffin. The McMuffin egg was invented by Herb Peterson, a McDonald's manager from Santa Barbara, California.
McDonald's is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
In an effort to please health-conscious customers, on May 15, 1987, fresh salads appeared on the McDonald's menu.
Opening of the first McDonald's in the USSR and Russia on Pushkin Square in Moscow. At that time, it was the largest of all restaurants of this chain, which broke the record of the McDonald's chain, serving 30 thousand visitors on the opening day.
McDonald's launches a website, McDonalds.com.
In 2005, McDonald celebrated its 50th anniversary since opening its first restaurant.
McDonald's introduced a snack (snack) to the menu, adding a sandwich to lunch.
In competition with cafes and bistros, McDonald's is launching a line of latte and cappuccino in restaurants - McCafe, which also includes freshly squeezed fruit cocktails and Frappes.
McDonalds Museum in Des Plaines, Illinois
The museum of this king of fast food is located in San Bernardino, here you can see a mini-copy of the corporation's first restaurant with original equipment, which includes Ray Kroc cocktail machines. Very interesting exhibits are the uniforms of employees, which have changed many times over the years of the network. And of course, a lot of old ads, photos and a video library, which can be used to trace the history of the restaurant chain.
sources
http://mcdpopculture.blogspot.com
http://lifeglobe.net
http://kervansaraymarmaris.com
http://www.vmireinteresnogo.com
http://ria.ru
http://makdak2004.narod.ru/item4.html
The first McDonald's fast food restaurant in Moscow was opened on January 31, 1990. On the first day of operation, the restaurant on Pushkinskaya Square served more than 30 thousand visitors, setting a world record for the first working day in the history of McDonald's.
The first restaurant of the company was opened in Moscow on Pushkinskaya Square (Bolshaya Bronnaya, 29) on January 31, 1990. The first McDonald's in Russia was half state-owned - 51% of the company belonged to the Moscow government. Even in the logo of the Russian McDonald's there was the symbolism of the USSR.
Before opening a restaurant, McDonald's built a completely independent organization with its own potato farms in the Moscow region, its own processing plants for the production of hamburger buns, meat, apple pies and other products for restaurants. A giant processing and distribution complex was built in the Solntsevo area. In total, the company invested about $50 million in its project in the USSR.
Then the construction of the restaurant itself began. The key figures in this process were Canadian managers who personally came to Moscow to control everything on the spot.
McDonald's appeared in Russia thanks to George Cohan, the chairman of the board of directors of the Canadian company. The first negotiations began in 1976 at the Montreal Olympics. The agreement on the establishment of a joint venture between the Canadian company "McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited" and the Main Department of Public Catering of the Moscow City Executive Committee - "Moscow-McDonald's" was signed on April 29, 1988 in Moscow.
Previously, a very popular cafe "Lira" was located on this place - before the introduction of dry law, the bar was famous for its cocktails and was a favorite meeting place for Moscow students.
A large-scale renovation in the building of the former cafe "Lira" began in May 1989. The windows were sealed with paper, and what the insides were, one could only guess. No images of the future interior before the opening were released to the press. The only thing that indicated the future restaurant was a huge red and yellow sign. Pictured is the installation of the sign.
In preparation for the opening of the poppy, the building underwent a major overhaul, adding an extension to the building and changing the light color scheme to bright corporate colors (in one of the articles from the 1990s, the restaurant is called a gingerbread house for its brightness).
The first fast-food establishment had 900 seats inside the building and 200 more in the summer outdoor area.
A few weeks before the opening, advertisements appeared in Moscow newspapers recruiting staff for the first McDonald's. More than 25,000 applications were submitted for 630 places. Guaranteed pay - 2 rubles per hour, shift work.
It was unusual for new hires to have to address their superiors by their first names, and courtesy to customers and cleanliness were the main rules. Monthly earnings depended on output and could reach 300 rubles, which, compared with scholarships and earnings of young specialists, was a very large amount.
The new establishment, familiar to the West, but in sharp contrast to the traditional Soviet public catering, became a real sensation for the Land of the Soviets.
There were so many people who wanted to try American food that on the opening day, a line lined up at the McDuck, which became the longest in the history of the brand: a line of people half a kilometer long completely skirted Novopushkinsky Square.
On the opening day, George Cohan, the head of the Canadian McDonald's, cut the red ribbon, said a few parting words. Then he began shaking hands with almost everyone who came in.
It is interesting that, as eyewitnesses say, the very first visitors were not those standing in line and not party workers, but the children of one of the Moscow orphanages. The day before the opening, they were brought by bus and invited to a cafe where they were treated to free hamburgers.
In 1990, a Big Mac cost 3.75 rubles, while the average Soviet salary was 150 rubles. For comparison: a monthly bus ticket cost 3 rubles.
The restaurant had a standard menu for the chain in those years. From drinks you could choose Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and milkshakes (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry). Visitors to McDonald's tried a completely new product for them - ice cream with toppings (strawberry, caramel and chocolate). And the famous apple pie became an absolute bestseller from the very beginning.
Today, McDonald's is the world's most popular representative of the fast food industry. This is a place for family holidays and romantic dates, meetings with friends and just quick snacks at lunchtime. At the same time, the presence of McDonald's eateries in our lives has become so familiar, and the system of their work and service is so flexible and streamlined that it is difficult for us to imagine that it was not always like this.
Meanwhile, the founder of McDonald's, whose biography is replete not only with successful ideas and realized desires, but also with a series of failures and crises, at one time made an incredible amount of effort to keep this system safely afloat. Of course, it's not just about Ray Kroc, who managed to adopt and improve the fast service system in the McDonald's restaurant chain. We are talking about those huge teams of workers who worked in this system. And of course, about the brothers Dick and Maurice McDonald, whose name and technologies Ray Kroc borrowed in his business.
Founder of McDonald's
The biography of Ray Kroc (1902-1984), an American businessman, the discoverer of fast food restaurants, is proof that you should always believe in success at any age, despite various vicissitudes of fate. The beginning of work on the organization of the McDonald's network fell on Ray's solid years. By that time, he already had several serious physical illnesses (diabetes was one of them). However, this did not stop the entrepreneur in his career. Activity, creativity and discipline are the main components of Ray Kroc's success.
Carier start
Ray Kroc was born on October 5, 1902 in Illinois (Chicago). He was the eldest of three children. The difficult financial situation in the family did not give the boy the opportunity to get a good education (Ray graduated from only ten classes). However, young Kroc believed that hard work would eventually lead him to success. He tried to start his first business at the age of 15, selling musical instruments and notes with his friends. 
After returning from the front (the period of the First World War), Krok got married and began working as a seller of paper cups. During this period, his entrepreneurial spirit and creative approach to business begin to appear. So, the future founder of McDonald's comes up with the idea of organizing the delivery of water to the house. However, his idea is not supported. Then Croc arranges the first trial delivery of water for free. This marketing move not only worked, but was a huge success. Krok's next invention is the multimixer, a device that allows whisking five cocktails at the same time (1937). Ray even runs his own multifunctional mixer business. However, it took two years before the product began to gradually conquer the market.
Getting to know McDonald's
In 1954, Kroc met the McDonald brothers, Dick and Maurice, who owned a small restaurant in San Bernardino, California. Eight of Ray's multi-mixers were used in this establishment. But this is not what attracted the attention of the businessman. A feature of the restaurant was the system of high-speed customer service: serving fried potatoes, hamburgers, milkshakes, etc. For example, 40 milkshakes were prepared at the same time. High-speed service was built at the expense of an in-line production line for order servicing. In addition, all dishes were inexpensive, and therefore accessible to the general population. The restaurant itself was clean and tidy, all employees wore uniforms, which also made a positive impression.
What he saw surprised Kroc so much that he offered the MacDonald brothers cooperation. Dick and Maurice refused to expand production. But they agreed to an agreement according to which Croc gets the right to replicate the McDonald business using their name, and they receive 0.5% of the proceeds.
The rebirth of McDonald's
In the process of implementing a new type of eateries, Ray improves the system of high-speed service. Now each employee had to perform exactly one operation. Since the menu included a rather limited number of dishes, such a move was fully justified. In addition, strict discipline was required from all employees. The founder of McDonald's liked to repeat the phrase that would later become famous: "A man in himself is nothing. The main thing is organization.
Accurate calculation was also used by Croc in cooking. So, for example, a hamburger patty was made strictly according to specifications: weight - 1.6 ounces (about 45 g), diameter - 3.875 inches (about 10 cm), fat content - no more than 19%, etc. All burgers had the same size and high quality. In order to maintain the accuracy of the production process, Kroc even creates a special laboratory. And in 1961, the founder of McDonald's conducts classes on a special training program (the so-called Hamburger University). Licensees and vendors were introduced to new scientific methods for successful fast food restaurant management. 
Ray introduces army-style white uniforms for his employees. The discipline in the organization also resembled that of the army. By the way, this was the main reason why Krok did not hire women for the first time, fearing amorous deeds that could violate the strict military order. Subsequently, the girls were still allowed to work, but they preferred to take less attractive ones.
In 1961, the McDonald brothers agree to completely transfer ownership of their brand to Krok, giving him freedom of control. It should be noted that the letter "M" (the famous McDonald's logo) was valued at $2.7 million.
The first Big Mac
The high performance of Kroc's restaurants, which could hardly have been different from the first McDonald's, nevertheless had its drawbacks. For fear of slowing down the pace of the distribution line, Ray was forced to refuse to include new dishes on his menu. Gradually, visitors began to complain about the monotony of the diet - they were tired of eating the same foods every day. All attempts to improve the quality of existing dishes have led to nothing. And this despite the fact that more than $ 3 million was spent on the secret of special frying of potatoes alone!
Every person, thing or company has its own story. For some it is sad, for some it is ordinary, and for others it is enviable. It is the last characteristic that fits perfectly with the description of the history of McDonald's. No matter how much they scolded the company for imposing unhealthy food around the world, the obesity of the nation of Americans and so on, the approach to business turned out to be extremely successful. And no one can take that away. On the contrary, many companies look up to McDonald's. So how did the company get started? The business began back in 1940 when two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald, opened the first barbecue restaurant in San Bernardino, California. They took their business very seriously, and a small restaurant at the intersection of Fourteenth Street and E Street, which also served motorists, had become a very popular place throughout the district by the mid-40s. Soon the popularity gained such proportions that competitors began to appear and, although the business was not fundamentally threatened, there were many problems with hiring staff. Small restaurants literally fought each other for cooks and waiters. Among other problems that were an obstacle to greater profits, one can single out a narrow circle of restaurant visitors - these were mostly young people, as well as the constant loss and damage of dishes due to the fault of the same youth. The time has come for change. After analyzing the accounting for several years, the McDonald brothers discovered that the bulk of their turnover was hamburgers and made a decision that became life-changing. In 1948 they closed their restaurant for a few months and after opening they introduced their quick service system, which became the prototype of the modern fast food restaurant. The system or principle itself consisted of fast service, low prices and the highest possible turnover. Although such an idea was not so new, no one before them had thought of such a successful implementation of it. There were no more waitresses who repelled couples to visit such restaurants, disposable dishes were introduced into use, which do not need to be washed and constantly re-buy missing or broken sets. But the most important thing is the completely redesigned kitchen of the restaurant, everything was thought out to the smallest detail with one single goal - to maximize the volume of products, reducing the time of cooking and serving visitors. By the way, it was then that the original character of McDonald's appeared - the cook Shustrik, who in 1967 was replaced by Ronald McDonald. The Ray Kroc Story. Although the idea of a fast food restaurant was very successfully brought to life by the McDonald brothers, the company itself today pays more attention to the role of Ray Kroc. Maybe this is a little and unfair to the brothers, but their contribution on the official website is only mentioned in passing. So the McDonald brothers came up with the idea. Ray Kroc played a major role in the worldwide expansion of McDonald's. It was this man, at the age of 52, who laid the foundation for one of the largest companies in the world. The very case when an idea finds a performer and we are witnessing an incredibly successful development! Ray Kroc spent his whole life looking for himself, as a teenager, he left school early and did not receive a secondary education. During the First World War, he worked as an ambulance driver, for which he had to lie about his age. Later he was a pianist, sold paper cups, and finally, as a salesman for cocktail machines, he met brothers Dick and Mac, who ordered as many as 8 multi-mixers from him. Things were not going well for Ray and such a large order for multimixers surprised him. He was even more surprised when he saw firsthand how successfully the restaurant operates, offering a very limited menu to its visitors - hamburgers, fries and drinks. Ray Kroc, thanks to his vast experience in the trade, was able to see great potential in the creation of a chain of restaurants throughout the country. He shared his vision with the brothers, and since there was no other suitable candidate for the role of a franchise agent, the brothers gladly accepted the offer. I must say that the brothers, even before meeting with Krok, were looking for ways to expand their business. Despite the fact that the basic principles of franchising had already been formulated, including in the field of fast food, the McDonalds were not able to expand the network of their restaurants on their own, but with only varying success they traded licenses and revealed their secrets to everyone for free. The far-sighted Kroc was able to see the flaws in the licensing system, namely that most franchisors saw their role in getting rich quick and did not control the franchisees in any way, which ultimately undermined the entire business. This approach did not suit our hero, and he immediately realized that it was necessary to focus on the long term. This idea is the main one in the subsequent success of the McDonald's corporation - a franchising system unique for that time. Thus, in 1955, Ray Kroc founded McDonald's System, Inc. and 5 years later bought the exclusive rights to the McDonald's name. By 1958, McDonald's had sold its 100 millionth hamburger. Ray Kroc wanted to build a restaurant chain that was known for its consistent quality and versatile cooking method. Hamburgers, fries and drinks had to be the same in both Alaska and Alabama. Incidentally, in 1961, Ray Kroc opened the first Hamburger University in a new restaurant, Elk Grove Village, Illinois, which enabled franchisees and operators to be effectively trained to sustain and build on the success of McDonald's. Various studies were also carried out there on the creation of new products, the storage of semi-finished products and serving methods. Every person, thing or company has its own story. For some it is sad, for some it is ordinary, and for others it is enviable. It is the last characteristic that fits perfectly with the description of the history of McDonald's. No matter how much they scolded the company for imposing unhealthy food around the world, the obesity of the nation of Americans and so on, the approach to business turned out to be extremely successful. And no one can take that away. On the contrary, many companies look up to McDonald's. So how did the company get started? The business began back in 1940 when two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald, opened the first barbecue restaurant in San Bernardino, California. They took their business very seriously, and a small restaurant at the intersection of Fourteenth Street and E Street, which also served motorists, had become a very popular place throughout the district by the mid-40s. Soon the popularity gained such proportions that competitors began to appear and, although the business was not fundamentally threatened, there were many problems with hiring staff. Small restaurants literally fought each other for cooks and waiters. Among other problems that were an obstacle to greater profits, one can single out a narrow circle of restaurant visitors - these were mostly young people, as well as the constant loss and damage of dishes due to the fault of the same youth. The time has come for change. After analyzing the accounting for several years, the McDonald brothers discovered that the bulk of their turnover was hamburgers and made a decision that became life-changing. In 1948 they closed their restaurant for a few months and after opening they introduced their quick service system, which became the prototype of the modern fast food restaurant. The system or principle itself consisted of fast service, low prices and the highest possible turnover. Although such an idea was not so new, no one before them had thought of such a successful implementation of it. There were no more waitresses who repelled couples to visit such restaurants, disposable dishes were introduced into use, which do not need to be washed and constantly re-buy missing or broken sets. But the most important thing is the completely redesigned kitchen of the restaurant, everything was thought out to the smallest detail with one single goal - to maximize the volume of products, reducing the time of cooking and serving visitors. By the way, it was then that the original character of McDonald's appeared - the cook Shustrik, who in 1967 was replaced by Ronald McDonald. The Ray Kroc Story. Although the idea of a fast food restaurant was very successfully brought to life by the McDonald brothers, the company itself today pays more attention to the role of Ray Kroc. Maybe this is a little and unfair to the brothers, but their contribution on the official website is only mentioned in passing. So the McDonald brothers came up with the idea. Ray Kroc played a major role in the worldwide expansion of McDonald's. It was this man, at the age of 52, who laid the foundation for one of the largest companies in the world. The very case when an idea finds a performer and we are witnessing an incredibly successful development! Ray Kroc spent his whole life looking for himself, as a teenager, he left school early and did not receive a secondary education. During the First World War, he worked as an ambulance driver, for which he had to lie about his age. Later he was a pianist, sold paper cups, and finally, as a salesman for cocktail machines, he met brothers Dick and Mac, who ordered as many as 8 multi-mixers from him. Things were not going well for Ray and such a large order for multimixers surprised him. He was even more surprised when he saw firsthand how successfully the restaurant operates, offering a very limited menu to its visitors - hamburgers, fries and drinks. Ray Kroc, thanks to his vast experience in the trade, was able to see great potential in the creation of a chain of restaurants throughout the country. He shared his vision with the brothers, and since there was no other suitable candidate for the role of a franchise agent, the brothers gladly accepted the offer. I must say that the brothers, even before meeting with Krok, were looking for ways to expand their business. Despite the fact that the basic principles of franchising had already been formulated, including in the field of fast food, the McDonalds were not able to expand the network of their restaurants on their own, but with only varying success they traded licenses and revealed their secrets to everyone for free. The far-sighted Kroc was able to see the flaws in the licensing system, namely that most franchisors saw their role in getting rich quick and did not control the franchisees in any way, which ultimately undermined the entire business. This approach did not suit our hero, and he immediately realized that it was necessary to focus on the long term. This idea is the main one in the subsequent success of the McDonald's corporation - a franchising system unique for that time. Thus, in 1955, Ray Kroc founded McDonald's System, Inc. and 5 years later bought the exclusive rights to the McDonald's name. By 1958, McDonald's had sold its 100 millionth hamburger. Ray Kroc wanted to build a restaurant chain that was known for its consistent quality and versatile cooking method. Hamburgers, fries and drinks had to be the same in both Alaska and Alabama. Incidentally, in 1961, Ray Kroc opened the first Hamburger University in a new restaurant, Elk Grove Village, Illinois, which enabled franchisees and operators to be effectively trained to sustain and build on the success of McDonald's. Various studies were also carried out there on the creation of new products, the storage of semi-finished products and serving methods. To date, over 80,000 people have been trained. McDonald's and Ray Kroc are inextricably linked with each other, and in fact Ray's story is the history of the company, this is the official position. Until his death on January 14, 1984, while confined to a wheelchair, he went to work in the San Diego office. His role for McDonald's is comparable to that of Henry Ford with his automobile assembly line and the slogan "a car for everyone" or Steve Jobs with his "Think Different", who, after returning to Apple in 1998, returned to its former glory and profit within a few years. Despite everything, the company continues to follow the inspirational principles that were started by the McDonald brothers and developed by Ray Kroc: a small menu that meets high quality standards, friendly service, cleanliness and accessibility to a wide range of people. 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After fifty years, life is just beginning! Such a statement seems incredible, and yet it is possible. And confirmation of this is the story of a seller of paper cups, mixers, who at the age of 52 began to build an empire that has grown all over the world. It's about Ray Kroc - the founder of the international network of fast food restaurants "McDonald's".
Surprising is the fact that Ray Kroc was neither the inventor of the concept of fast food, nor the founder of the first McDonald's restaurant, he was not even the author of the idea of the legendary golden arches. The history of the creation of a business seems incredible. He owes his success to his own perseverance and enterprise.
Reference: Today, the McDonald's restaurant chain consists of more than 37 thousand establishments around the world, more than 100 billion hamburgers have been sold. More than 30 thousand people came to the opening of the first McDonald's restaurant in Moscow in January 1990.
Read how Ray Kroc was able to build a multi-billion dollar empire on someone else's idea.
Where did the "founder" start?
The future founder of the McDonald's empire, Ray (Raymond Albert) Kroc, was born in a suburb of Chicago on October 5, 1902. His father, Louis Kroc, worked all his life at Western Union, tried to give a decent education to his children: Ray, his younger brother Bob, sister Lauren.
However, the younger children studied with much more desire than Ray. He did not like education. In "McDonald's. How an empire was created, ”the entrepreneur says that he did not like to read books, it seemed to him too boring. But he was very fond of dreaming, thinking, acting.
“My relatives teased me as a “dreamer” - after all, even when I was in the last grades of school, I came home delighted with a plan I had thought up or a drawing I had drawn. I never believed that dreams are a waste of energy, as long as they lead to certain actions.
The biography of Ray Kroc is replete with all sorts of undertakings, the future founder worked somewhere throughout his life: in a grocery store, in a pharmacy, in his uncle's music store during his school years.
He says that "work is the meat in life's hamburger."
He sold coffee beans, small haberdashery, worked as a Red Cross ambulance driver, for this he had to lie - to exaggerate his age.
This is interesting: Another person who hid his age at the recruiting office was a modest guy who, while the other guys were walking around the city, looked after the girls, sat and drew pictures. His name was Walt Disney.
During his school years, Kroc was fond of baseball (later, becoming the "king of fast food", he acquired the San Diego Padres baseball club), played the piano well thanks to the lessons that his mother gave him. In the last school summer, Ray worked as a seller of lemonade, soft drinks. Even then, he realized that with the help of a smile, you can influence people.
He set aside all the money he earned, on which he opened the first business with a friend - a small music store. Having chipped in for a hundred, the friends rented a small closet for $ 25, in which they sold exotic musical instruments and notes.
Ray entertained customers with piano playing and songs performed by himself. But sales were very poor, because almost no one knew about the existence of the store. A few months later, I had to say goodbye to the business: my friends sold the goods to another store, divided the proceeds received and closed. This was the first, but far from the last fiasco in the entrepreneurial activity of Ray Kroc.
He always wanted to sell something and play the piano for money, and even in his youth, Ray was an irresistible heartthrob. This explosive mix once led to him nearly getting into big trouble playing music in a club that turned out to be a brothel.
He later worked as a stockbroker for a company that later turned out to be a diluted equity firm. As a result, the company went bankrupt.
Family, paper cups, mixers
At that time (in the early 20s), the Croc family moved to New York, which was a real blow for Ray, because he already had a relationship with a girl, Ethel Fleming, with whom they were going to marry. As a result, the family returned to Chicago again. Ray wanted to marry Ethel, but his father forbade him, saying that he first needed to find a job, and more serious than the position of a messenger or bellhop.
In 1922, Ray took a job as a sales representative for the Lily Cup paper cup company. There were no more objections to the creation of a family from the parents, the young people got married.
The sale of cups was creaking. Ray compared this business to a bear that fattens up all summer and lives on it in winter. Sales were good only in the summer, but Kroc felt that paper cups had a lot to do with the way America was developing. In parallel, he worked as a full-time musician at a radio station, where he played in the evenings, after his main job. After the night shifts, he went home, began to undress already on the stairs, and as soon as his head touched the pillow, he was already sound asleep.
“I had big ambitions, I couldn’t sit back even for a minute. I firmly decided to get rich in order to afford beautiful things, and I must say that earning two jobs gave us this opportunity.
Ray and Ethel had a daughter in 1924 and he had to work even harder. He earned 35 dollars a week, and in 1925 he achieved his first success: he entered into an agreement for the supply of large quantities of glasses to the Walter Powers restaurant. There were other successful projects, the company raised Kroc's salary as a reward for his zeal. So he was able to buy a brand new Ford.
At that time, Ray, his wife and her sister moved to Miami for a while, where he performed with an orchestra and worked as a real estate agent.
In 1930, Ray's father died of a cerebral hemorrhage. In those years, the stock market collapsed - all the assets of Louis Kroc depreciated, he could not survive this blow.
Interesting fact: among his father's yellowed papers, Ray found a phrenologist's report on the interpretation of the bulges on Raymond Kroc's head when he was four years old. The data of the report stated that Kroc would become a cook or his life would be connected with cooking. Surprisingly, the prediction came true.
Returning to Chicago, Ray continued to sell paper cups, decided to devote himself only to this business, ceasing to waste on various part-time jobs, until the beginning of 1938, when he organized a company selling mixers. The wife did not support his undertaking, the relationship became cold.
The starting points for the new business were: a briefcase containing a sample of a new multi-mixer, huge ambitions, and an entire country where soda and cocktail bar owners were waiting for Ray to offer them a product. So the newly minted businessman thought, but he was wrong.
Krok turned into a real mobile team, which consisted of one person - himself. He traveled around the country, offered to buy mixers, rented an office, hired a secretary. The mixer business led Ray to a mortgage that forced him to mortgage his house, a $100,000 debt, and a desperate wife.
Who Invented McDonalds
In the first half of the 20th century, eateries for car enthusiasts, the so-called dry-ins, were common in America. Their essence was that motorists drove up to the establishment by car in order to order and receive an order, they did not even have to get out of the cars.
However, such a system had many drawbacks: slow service, expenses for the salary of waitresses, dishes. It was this restaurant that was the first establishment of the brothers Dick (Richard) and Mac (Maurice) McDonald.
However, its founders decided to modernize the existing system - they came up with a fundamentally different model:
- introduced a self-service system;
- orders were served in disposable paper dishes;
- the assortment was reduced to a minimum, there were hamburgers, french fries, drinks - only 9 items;
- all functions for cooking were clearly distributed among the kitchen workers.
The brothers closed the first restaurant and opened a new one according to the described model. Orders were prepared almost instantly, the dishes were disposable, so you could eat anywhere: at home, in the car, on a bench in the park. The idea turned out to be very successful, the demand was huge.
By 1954, when Kroc's business was relatively stable, he became interested in a small fast food restaurant located in San Bernardino, California. Ray's interest in this restaurant was sparked by the fact that the owners purchased eight mixers. This means that they whipped up forty cocktails at the same time. It was McDonald's.
Ray Kroc and McDonald's
Arriving in San Bernardino, Ray Kroc met the McDonald brothers. They told him about the business, how it all worked, and asked if Kroc knew someone who could help them build the network. Ray caught fire with the idea and replied that he himself was such a person.
Initially, Kroc's idea was to open a chain of McDonald's restaurants, to which he could supply mixers. An agreement was signed with Mac and Dick, according to which Kroc could sell McDonald's franchises, while receiving a 1.9% commission. The brothers were entitled to 1.5% of his share. True, as it turned out, permission to use the name McDonald was given not only to Kroc, but also to a dozen other establishments in California and Arizona.
This is interesting: the first McDonald's franchises sold by Ray Kroc cost $950. Now their cost in Europe reaches 1 million dollars.
The entrepreneur used to say that he was not selling hamburgers, he was selling a business. McDonald's restaurants began to grow by leaps and bounds across America. Kroc gathered around him a team of professionals who helped build the business. He took risks, took out loans, pledged all his property, entered into transactions for long-term sublease, the purchase of land plots on which it was planned to build new restaurants.
In 1959, Krok's equity capital was $90,000. In 1960, the 200th restaurant opened. Despite the fact that Ray was absolutely absorbed in his work, his personal life did not stand aside. He divorced Ethel, leaving her almost all the property. He took such a step for the sake of a new love - a woman named Joni (Joan) Smith, the wife of one of Ray's partners.
However, the new lover could not decide on a divorce for a long time, and Krok was not able to live alone, so he married another woman. Yet in 1969, Ray Kroc married Joni Smith, divorcing his second wife.
In 1961, Kroc bought all rights to McDonald's from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million. This had to be done due to the fact that Dick and Mac slowed down the development of the network. To give the money to the brothers, Ray Kroc's company had to borrow the required amount from the Bristol Group, and in return it was paid 0.5% of the gross receipts of all McDonald's restaurants. According to the estimates, the payments were supposed to end in 1991, but by 1972 it was possible to fully pay off this loan.
In the early 60s, the University of Hamburgerology was founded in Illinois, where students were taught all the intricacies of running and managing McDonald's restaurants.
On his 70th birthday, Kroc donated $7.5 million to St. Jude Children's Hospital.
In 1983, McDonald's grossed $9 billion a day, and in December of the same year, Esquire magazine named Ray Kroc one of the 50 Most Influential People in American Lifestyle.
The founder of the empire took part in business until the last days, although he moved in a wheelchair in recent years. Krok died of a heart attack at the age of 82. At the time of his death, in 1984, his personal fortune was estimated at 0.5 billion US dollars. In 2016, the film "The Founder" was released, which tells how Ray Kroc built the McDonald's empire.
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