In 1940, Dick and Mac McDonald opened McDonalds Bar-B-que restaurant in San Bernardino, California. Dick and Mac made fifteen-cent burgers and sold them like crazy. Little did they know that it was a restaurant that would not only change the face of culture but eventually impact on economics across the entire world.
The restaurant was mechanized and standardized far ahead of its time. Cast-iron grills that lost heat when loaded with beef were replaced by stainless-steel grills that were double the size and easier to clean and held heat better.
Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. It’s selling 15 cent hamburgers and 10cent fries.
Dick McDonald came up with the idea of the golden arch in 1953, not long before the brothers opened their first franchise store in Phoenix, Arizona.
In 1955, Ray Kroc, a salesman who owned the rights to the mixers the brothers used to make the milkshakes, was granted the exclusive rights to develop the McDonalds franchise in the United States.
The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955, the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall.
Ray Kroc eventually took over the business, drove the McDonald’s restaurants into success, and later led McDonald worldwide expansion.
In 1961, Dick and Mac sold their rights in the business to Ray Kroc for $2.7 million.
Early history of McDonalds
