Ray Kroc

Millions of people across the US can thank a man named Ray Kroc for being able to enjoy a particular piece of food more American than apple pie, the McDonald's hamburger. Kroc, who was of Czech descent, founder of this fast-food empire, began his life in 1902 in America's most prominent Czech enclave, Chicago, Illinois. At the age of fifty-two, Kroc visited two brothers known as the "McDonald brothers" at their California restaurant. He then discovered that they were making a small fortune by only selling hamburgers, french fries, and milkshakes. During his visit, Ray convinced the brothers to let him start his own chain of drive-in hamburger restaurants identical to their establishment and even used the same name, McDonald. He then set forth a contract where the brothers would receive one-half of one percent of his new business. Shortly after, on April 15, 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first drive-in McDonald's in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines. Within a few years, he grossed hundreds of thousands of dollars and bought out the McDonald brothers for $2,700,000. As a result, this gained him exclusive rights to the McDonald name, but the question is, why not keep his last name? When asked, Ray’s answer was, “The name McDonald’s” is a nice sounding All-American name. Meaning, he knew how certain people would be judgemental against foreign-sounding names. By the year 1973, he commanded 2,500 McDonald's restaurants, including those in foreign cities such as Paris and London.