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 a week, and in 1925 he achieved his first success: he signed a contract 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.

Watch the McDonalds Corporation business development video.

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.

After reading this article, you are unlikely to want to eat at McDonald's and prefer to cook at home.

1. Raymond Albert Kroc put the McDonald brothers out of business simply to annoy them.

McDonald's was founded in 1940 by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald. In 1961, American entrepreneur Raymond Albert Kroc, who had previously worked with the McDonalds as the exclusive franchise agent, bought all rights to the company from them for $2.7 million.

The McDonald brothers decided to keep their very first restaurant, which they renamed "Big M". They just had time to buy furniture and update the interior, like Krok, who, apparently, hated the MacDonald brothers and decided to annoy them. Shortly after the deal was closed, Kroc opened a new McDonald's directly across from the Big M restaurant, putting it out of business.

2. McDonald's food doesn't go bad for years.

McDonald's food doesn't go bad for years. This is an established fact. In 1999, American David Whipple bought a hamburger at McDonald's, put it in his coat pocket and forgot about it. Imagine his surprise when, fourteen years later, he took a hamburger out of his coat pocket and saw that it was fresh and not spoiled at all.

If this doesn't sound suspicious to you, then you might be concerned that neither bugs nor flies want to eat McDonald's food left out in the open.

According to representatives of the McDonald's company, their hamburgers do not spoil for a long time because they contain practically no water. According to scientists, McDonald's food is overloaded with fat, sugar and salt, so under normal conditions it does not succumb to spoilage and decay.

3. McDonald's french fries have 14 ingredients

The McDonald's company is trying in every way to convince the public that the food sold in their restaurants is not harmful, as we used to believe.

As part of this effort, the company's owners paid Grant Imahara, a contestant on the MythBusters television show, to say on camera that McDonald's food was "natural." However, the company's massive publicity campaign did nothing to hide the fact that French fries made at McDonald's in the United States of America contain fourteen chemical additives and preservatives. For comparison: french fries, which are sold in Russia, are made from, in fact, potatoes, vegetable oil, salt and sugar.

4. McDonald's salad is worse than a Big Mac.

A salad is certainly a useful thing, but only if you cooked it yourself, and did not buy it at McDonald's. The ingredients that McDonald's employees use to make their salads typically include dressings and fried chicken. This makes salads so unhealthy that in some situations it's better to order a Big Mac than a serving of salad that has twice the fat of a double bacon cheeseburger and fries.

5. McDonald's was involved in one of the longest lawsuits in history.

You might not be too surprised to learn that McDonald's was involved in one of the longest litigations in the history of England. But you will certainly be amazed by the fact that the owners of McDonald's ultimately won it (but only on paper), while spending ten years of time and a decent amount of money. They were opposed not by companies or lawyers representing the interests of numerous people, but by two ordinary British citizens who did not want corporations to get away with the ruthless destruction of nature.

The story began in 1986, when five Londoners began handing out leaflets near one of the capital's McDonald's, calling for support for the campaign against the destruction of tropical forests by the owners of McDonald's. They also accused the company of using children in their advertising and exploiting employees. When the owners of McDonald's began to suffer losses from this, they immediately accused the campaigners of slander. Three of them were frightened by the lawsuit with McDonald's and left the game, but Helen Steele and David Morris stood their ground resolutely; they wanted the company to get the punishment it deserved.

After the start of the trial, in which Steele and Morris were forced to represent themselves, the owners of McDonald's spent millions of dollars trying to force the couple to back down, but this did not bring any results.

Helen Steele and David Morris subsequently applied to the European Court of Human Rights. They felt it was unfair that they weren't allowed to seek legal advice when the owners of McDonald's hired an army of lawyers. The court agreed with them and ordered the British government to pay compensation in the amount of several thousand pounds.

Formally, McDonald's won the case, but to achieve this, they had to spend millions of dollars and ten years in litigation. Meanwhile, Morris and Steele spent £30,000 and received £57,000 in damages after applying to the European Court. This can certainly be called a victory.

6. Tax evasion

McDonald's, like other large corporations, uses many loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Over the past decade, the company has been accused several times of evading billions in taxes, but it has not suffered the deserved punishment. In turn, McDonald's representatives say that they always pay taxes on time.

7 McDonald's Tried To Hire Rappers To Advertise Big Macs

Modern consumers are gradually becoming immune to traditional methods of advertising. As a result, companies have to find new ways to get people to buy their products. There was a time when the owners of McDonald's turned to many hip-hop stars with a request (for a certain amount of money, of course) to include the word "Big Mac" in their songs and constantly ran into a refusal.

Under the terms of the deal, the rappers were to receive five dollars for every time a song that mentioned the word "Big Mac" was played on the radio. Naturally, not a single rapper agreed to accept such a "profitable" offer.

8. In the 1990s, McDonald's stopped tracking customer service.

For years, McDonald's has been tallying how many customers they've served in twelve months at their locations around the world. Every year their number increased until it eventually reached 99 billion. After that, McDonald's stopped tracking the number of customers served. In 1994, the company's owners decided it would be easier to write "billions of customers" on restaurant signs than to reinstall them every couple of years.

9. Filet-o-Fish and pathetic burger

Everyone knows that the Filet-o-Fish fish burger was added to the McDonald's menu in order to attract devout Catholics, who traditionally do not eat meat on Fridays, to the restaurant of the network, located in the Catholic suburbs and was not very popular.

When the creator of Filet-o-Fish first presented his creation to Raymond Kroc, he didn't think the fish burger would become so popular, so he prepared to surprise everyone with the Hula Burger (a bun with a piece of pineapple). His expectations were not met. The Filet-o-Fish, according to consumers, turned out to be better than the Hula Burger, which is not surprising.

10 Ronald McDonald Actors Were Not Allowed To Tell Kids Where Food Comes From

Ronald McDonald was relegated to a tertiary role in a McDonald's commercial after most people started to think clowns were creepy and scary. However, a few decades ago, Ronald McDonald was one of the most recognizable and beloved mascot characters on Earth.

An interesting fact is that the actors who played the role of Ronald McDonald never ate McDonald's hamburgers or fries, as this could ruin their makeup. In addition, they were not allowed to tell the children what McDonald's food was made from. If one of the children asked where the food sold at McDonald's came from, the clowns answered that hamburgers and french fries are grown in special fields.

The material was prepared by Rosemarina - based on an article from toptenz.net

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Are you looking for this? Perhaps this is what you could not find for so long?

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 the description perfectly. McDonald's history.

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.

First, let's decide on the correct name. The company's official name is McDonald's Corporation. But when it comes to the Russian name, there is some confusion. In Russia, the trademark McDonald's is used. No soft sign. However, most people use the soft sign in both spelling and pronunciation.

By the way, in the Republic of Belarus the trademark is spelled with a soft sign, while in Ukraine it sounds like McDonald's.

As a result, I am more inclined to the opinion of the majority and will write McDonald's. Or, at worst, just McDonald's.

So how was the company created?

The business started 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.

This is what the original restaurant in San Bernardino looked like. The price of 15 cents for a hamburger is more than acceptable.

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 - young people, as well as the constant loss and damage of dishes due to the fault of the same youth.

It's time 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 crucial.

In 1948, they closed their restaurant for a few months and after opening they introduced their Speedee 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 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 McDonald's character appeared - the cook Shustrik (Speedee), who was replaced in 1967.

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 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. The main role in the worldwide spread of McDonald's was played by (Ray Kroc). 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 the 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. (in 1960 the company was renamed McDonald's Corporation) and 5 years later bought the exclusive rights to the McDonald's name. By 1958, McDonald's had sold its 100 millionth hamburger.

This is what a McDonald's restaurant in San Bernardino looks like today

Unique philosophy

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.

The motto was:

«In business for yourself, but not by yourself».

It can be translated into Russian as: "In business for yourself, but not alone." He convinced franchisees and suppliers of his philosophy to work not for McDonald's, but for himself, along with McDonald's.

His philosophy was based on simple principles, like a chair with three legs:

• one leg is McDonald's
• second franchisee
• third suppliers

The success of the company is directly related to this motto. Franchisees followed the basic principles: quality, service, cleanliness and availability. Suppliers, in turn, accepted the high quality standards demanded by McDonald's.

University of Hamburgerology

In 1961, Ray Kroc opened the first Hamburger University in a new restaurant, Elk Grove Village, Illinois, which allowed 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.

End of the Legend

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: small, high quality standards, friendly service, cleanliness and accessibility to a wide range of people.

2014-02-01

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Franchisee Sites

There is probably no such person on the planet who has not heard about the McDonald's fast food restaurant. It has become extremely popular all over the world, turning the idea of ​​what fast food should be and how you can quickly feed thousands of people, creating an endless stream of visitors. In this article, we will look athow this company has grown and developed, and what it has managed to achieve in 80 years of existence.

History of appearance

McDonald's owes its history to the Great Depression that hit the United States in the 1930s. Two brothers, Maurice and Richard, who had previously worked as decorators in Hollywood, realized that incomes were constantly falling and it was impossible to survive on a salary.

The first McDonald's looked like this

They move to the warm town of San Bernardino, located in California. Further events develop according to the following scenario:

1. In the early 40s, they open the first cinema in the city, but it does not bring much profit, because the population has too little income.
2. In the mid-40s, the situation in the United States improves significantly, but the cinema still does not pay off, so the brothers decide to change their profile and open a diner near the highway, designed for motorists passing by.

The McDonads use two intersecting gold arches in the form of the letter M, decorated with neon lights, as an advertisement - today this symbol is known all over the world.The brothers are doing well - the place turned out to be successful, a large number of travelers stop at them, and some of them leave the diner without waiting for their order. Therefore, the McDonalds decide to streamline food production by organizing an assembly line, like in a Ford factory. They independently develop a scheme for arranging equipment and moving products around the kitchen in such a way as to simplify the process as much as possible and minimize the actions of personnel. Then they close the cafe and start a complete refurbishment.

The brothers purchase professional stainless steel equipment and modify it to create a full-fledged kitchen conveyor with a clear sequence of personnel actions. They also reduce the menu, completely throwing out from it dishes that require long cooking (grill, etc.). Instead of two dozen dishes, only 11 dishes remain on the menu, which require minimal cooking effort: a cheeseburger, a hamburger, coffee, milk, various pies, cold drinks, cocktails and french fries. Moreover, the principle of self-service was introduced - visitors could take what they like themselves, paying at the checkout. Another important step was taken - the brothers made a bet on a huge flow and minimal profit, reducing the prices of hamburgers and cheeseburgers from the generally accepted 30 cents to 15. A new cafe was opened at the end of 1948 - this particular the founding date is considered the birthday of McDonald's in its current form.

Croc's coming

The flow-oriented cafe became popular on its second day of opening, and by the end of 1949, it had made a profit of $400,000, which at the time was considered a huge sum. The cafe served several hundred customers a day, which was considered incredible for an establishment of this size. Moreover, it led to the development of local producers of meat, potatoes, milk and buns - several farms worked to ensure the operation of the cafe, which previously could not make ends meet due to the small number of sales.

The diner continues to work, the brothers become richer, but they simply do not have time to develop - the cafe is 100% loaded and takes away all the free time from the owners. Therefore, they begin to think about opening a second institution, but simply do not have time to do it. And then the brothers meet with a man named Ray Kroc, who, in fact, became the organizer of the first fast food empire.

Today this logo is known all over the world.

At the time of the meeting with the McDonalds, Croc was 52 of the year . He was a man with rich life experience. At the age of 15, he worked as a chauffeur at a local ambulance station, after which he played in a band in bars, sold real estate and various accessories. He ended up selling cocktail mixers. In the mid-1950s, the McDonalds approached him, deciding to purchase ten mixers. It was a very large order - not all restaurants could afford such equipment, but here it was a roadside eatery, so Krok was very interested and decided to visit this institution on his own.

Arriving at the place, he saw an amazing picture - there was a huge queue of dozens of cars in the cafe, but it moved very quickly - the flow was serviced at an incredible speed, drivers and their passengers raked hamburgers and cheeseburgers from the windows, received soft drinks and went on, and on The entire procedure took one machine less than a minute. And Ray realized that such a system of work is the future. He not only sold the brothers equipment at a good discount, but also offered his services to develop a franchise to increase profits several times over. And speaking frankly, who created McDonald's, we owe it to Ray for his world fame.