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Writer's pictureBrandon Olmedo

History of McDonald´s

McDonald's is a restaurant chain created by brothers Dick and Mac McDonalds on May 15, 1940. This day they opened the first restaurant under the name McDonald's Famous Barbecue on Route 66 in San Bernardino, California.

His idea was offer barbecue food to customers straight to their cars with waitresses bringing the food to them. This idea made the stay of the clients long.

In 1948 they realized that most of their profits came from the sale of hamburgers, so they decided to close the restaurant and implement an innovative quick service system called "Speedy". They later reopened their restaurant, now under the name McDonald's Famous Hamburgers.



The McDonald brothers' only problem with creating the “Speedy” system was that they sold it to anyone who wanted to know for $950 each; In the same way, they gave free tours to anyone who asked for it, among them are Keith J. Kramer and Matthew Burns, creators of the predecessor to Burger King called "Insta-Burger King" and Glen Bell, founder of Taco Bell

In 1953, the McDonald brothers began franchising their restaurants; Neil Fox opened the first restaurant and the second opened in Phoenix, Arizona. This was the first to use the logo based on the golden arches, and its name was shortened to McDonald's.

The original mascot was a hamburger-shaped man in a chef's hat named "speedee."



In 1954, Ray Kroc, a manufacturer and seller of milkshake machines decided to visit the restaurant, so he was impressed with the speed of the service, so he proposed to the McDonald brothers the sale of the original location of the company (in California and Arizona).

In 1960 the name was changed to McDonald's Corporation and the McDonald brothers decide to sell the rights of their company to Kroc for 2.7 million dollars. Following this, Kroc decided to cut ties with the McDonald brothers, but the deal allowed the brothers to keep their original restaurant, but they were unable to retain the right to continue their McDonald's franchise.



The brothers had to change their name to "The Big M", but Kroc bankrupted it after building a McDonald's across the street from the original restaurant.



Later Kroc began to sell the McDonald's brand and tried to convince Walt Disney to open a McDonald's in Disneyland, which was about to open, but it was unsuccessful.

In 1963, McDonald's wanted to get entire families to come to the restaurant, so it was decided to hire actor Willard Scott to play a new character, the clown Ronald McDonald. In their first 3 TV commercials this campaign was successful, but after they decided Scott wasn't right to play the character, they opted to create a cast of characters who live in McDonald's.



In 1968, the Big Mac, a copy of the Bob's Big Boy hamburger, was introduced to the restaurant.





In 1973, the Quarter Pounder and the Egg McMuffin were introduced, as well as the first Playland McDonald's playground, which opened in Chula Vista, California.



A year later, in 1974, the first Ronald McDonald House was opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

By 1975, The Drive-Thru system was introduced in Arizona for customers to place their order without getting out of the car, which was later known as "McDrive", "Automac" or "McAuto"

In 2006 McDonald's and Disney end their 20-year promotional association, in which toys from movies and characters from the production company were sold in Happy Meals, but that same year a promotional association with Dreamworks Animation begins. Finally, in 2009, 20th Century Fox and McDonald's also began a promotional association, beginning to sell toys of the production company's characters with their Happy Meal, beginning with the movie Ice Age 3/Ice Age: The Origin of the Dinosaurs.






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