McDonald’s is the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries across 36,538 outlets. Founded in the United States in 1940, the company began as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald.
Find out interesting facts about it here!
1. In 1948, they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand using production line principles. Businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955.
2. He subsequently purchased the chain from the McDonald brothers and oversaw its worldwide growth. Based in Oak Brook, Illinois, McDonald’s confirmed plans to move its global headquarters to Chicago by early 2018.
3. A McDonald’s restaurant is operated by either a franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself. The McDonald’s Corporation revenues come from the rent, royalties, and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants.
4. According to a 2012 BBC report, McDonald’s is the world’s second largest private employer—behind Walmart—with 1.9 million employees, 1.5 million of whom work for franchises.
5. McDonald’s primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts. In response to changing consumer tastes, the company has expanded its menu to include salads, fish, wraps, smoothies and fruit.
6. The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald at 1398 North E Street at West 14th Street in San Bernardino, California.
7. Their introduction of the “Speedee Service System” in 1948 furthered the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant that the White Castle hamburger chain had already put into practice more than two decades earlier.
8. The first McDonald’s with the arches opened in Phoenix, Arizona in March 1953.
9. The original mascot of McDonald’s was a man with a chef’s hat on top of a hamburger-shaped head whose name was “Speedee”.
10. By 1967, Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald when the company first filed a U.S. trademark on a clown-like man having puffed-out costume legs.
11. On May 4, 1961, McDonald’s first filed for a U.S. trademark on the name “McDonald’s” with the description “Drive-In Restaurant Services”, which continues to be renewed through the end of December 2009.
12. On September 13 that same year, the company filed a logo trademark on an overlapping, double-arched “M” symbol.
13. By September 6, 1962, this M-symbol was temporarily disfavored, when a trademark was filed for a single arch, shaped over many of the early McDonald’s restaurants in the early years.
14. Although the “Golden Arches” logo appeared in various forms, the present version as a letter “M” did not appear until November 18, 1968, when the company applied for a U.S. trademark.
15. McDonald’s has become emblematic of globalization, sometimes referred to as the “McDonaldization” of society.
15. The Economist newspaper uses the “Big Mac Index”: the comparison of a Big Mac’s cost in various worldcurrencies can be used to informally judge these currencies’ purchasing power parity.
16. Switzerland has the most expensive Big Mac in the world as of July 2015, while the country with the least expensive Big Mac is India.
17. McDonald’s first menu items were hot dogs, not hamburgers.
18. McDonalds’ Caesar salad is more fattening than their hamburger.
19. McDonald’s first drive-thru opened in 1975 in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The restaurant was located near a military base, and soldiers were not allowed to leave their cars while wearing fatigues.
20. There are almost more than one-and-half times more McDonald’s locations than hospitals in the United States: 14,350 versus 10,660.
21. McDonald’s invested in Chipotle in 1998, back when the fast-Mexican chain consisted of 16 restaurants. By 2006, McDonald’s owned 90 percent of Chipotle—which had grown to 500 locations—but it sold its stake in order to focus on McDonald’s.
22. The average McDonald’s drive-thru transaction took roughly three minutes, or 189.49 seconds, according to one recent study.
23. McDonalds opens a new restaurant every 14.5 hours.
24. McDonald’s restaurants feed 68 million people every day. That’s more than the entire population of the U.K.
25. McDonald’s’ $27 billion in revenue makes it the 90th-largest economy in the world.
26. At its Paris Champs-Elysees restaurant, McDonald’s typically yellow Golden Arches are neon white to blend in with the lighting of of that location.
27. McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys.
28. Samuel Jackson’s character came pretty close in Pulp Fiction: a Quarter Pounder in France is called a Royal Cheese, not a Royale with Cheese.
29. The Queen of England owns a McDonald’s near Buckingham Palace.
30. In 2005, a man named Ronald MacDonald actually robbed a Wendy’s.
31. McDonald’s best-selling menu item is … French fries.
32. The Fillet-O-Fish was added to the McDonald’s menu to lure devout Roman Catholics, who traditionally don’t eat meat on Fridays, into a struggling McDonald’s located in a heavily Catholic suburb. After it proved popular enough to save that particular restaurant, McDonald’s made it a permanent menu fixture.
33. Franchisee Herb Peterson created the Egg McMuffin, which became available in 1971, by modeling it off his breakfast of choice, eggs benedict.
34. It takes the average McDonald’s employee 7 months to earn what a CEO makes in an hour.
35. McDonald’s drive-thru staff won’t serve people if they come on horseback.
36. At a grand total of 1,880 calories, the 40-piece Chicken McNuggets are the highest calorie item on the regular menu. That’s more calories than many adults should consume in a single day.
37. While there are disputes about who invented the Ronald McDonald character, Willard Scott—who later became famous for being The Today Show weatherman— was the first to portray him in TV ads.
38. Scott was fired from being Ronald McDonald after he was deemed to be “too fat.”
39. In Japan, the character is known as Donald McDonald, due to the lack of a clear “R” sound in Japanese.
40. In the Guinness Book of World Records, one record is unlikely to be beat anytime soon: “Most Big Macs Consumed.” When Don Gorske of Wisconsin set the record in 2008, he’d already consumed 22,477 sandwiches.
41. Over 80,000 people graduated from McDonald’s Hamburger University with a bachelor’s degree in hamburgerology.
42. McDonald’s Big Mac is used as an economic index to compare purchasing power between currencies and countries.
43. According to company estimates, one in every eight American workers has been employed by McDonald’s.
44. Despite being the literal face of McDonald’s, actors playing Ronald couldn’t be seen eating McDonald’s food in case it smudged their make-up. Even worse, actors donning the red fuzzy wig weren’t allowed to tell children what McDonald’s food was made from, and were on strict orders to say that McDonald’s burgers and fries were grown whole and picked from a field.
45. Only McDonald’s fries in the United States contain this cocktail of preservatives and incredibly metal sounding ingredients, while fries being sold in the United Kingdom only contain potato, oil, salt and sugar.
46. While only McDonald’s is on Twitter (with more than 2.8 million followers), both McDonald’s and Ronald McDonald have Instagram accounts. McDonald’s boasts 565,000 followers to Ronald’s 10,900.
Queen of Tears is a popular, successful K-Drama, that became the second highest series in… Read More
"Evil Does Not Exist" is the new film from the Oscar nominated screenwriter and director… Read More
Mufasa: The Lion King is an upcoming American musical drama film directed by Barry Jenkins,… Read More
The Garfield Movie is an upcoming American animated comedy adventure film based on Jim Davis'… Read More
Dove Cameron is an American singer and actress, who rose to fame due to her… Read More
