The Man Behind McDonald’s

讲义P 27

Reading：THE MAN BEHIND McDonald's

IN 1954, two brothers ran a small but busy restaurant in San Bernardino, California. The restaurant’s menu is very limited which included: hamburgers, french fries, soft drinks and milkshakes. The milkshakes were very popular and the restaurant had purchased ten special "Multimixer" milkshake makers. Each one could mix five milkshake at a time.

A salesman named Ray Kroc was the exclusive distributor of the "Multimixer" milkshake machines at that time. Ray decided to visit the restaurant; he wanted to find out why they had so many machines. 

Ray talked to Richard and Maurice (Mac) McDonald, the owners of the restaurant. He saw how they prepared the food using equipment that they had invented. The service in the restaurant was fantastic opportunity. He wanted to open more restaurants and so sell more multimixers. 

 In April 1955, Ray opened his first franchised McDonald's restaurant in Illinois. First day sales were $366.12. 

Ray continued to open new restaurants and to expand. In 1961, he bought the business from the MacDonald brothers for $2.7 million. 

Today, McDonald's Corporation has over 32,000 restaurants in over 110 countries. There is even one in Kuwait City, which opened in 1994. On its first day, there were 15,000 people lining up to eat at the restaurant.