97 Fun Facts About McDonald's

In which California city did the McDonald brothers open the original McDonald's restaurant in 1940?

San Bernardino's first McDonald's opened in 1940 as a barbecue drive-in; the brothers rebuilt it in 1948 around a short, fast menu, and the site now holds an unofficial museum run by a chicken chain.

What was Ray Kroc selling when he first visited the McDonald brothers in 1954?

Milkshake mixers: the brothers had bought eight of his Prince Castle Multimixers, and Kroc went to see why one stand needed so many.

Ray Kroc's first franchised restaurant opened in 1955 in which Illinois town?

Kroc's Des Plaines restaurant opened on April 15, 1955, the date the corporation counts as its founding, though it was in fact about the ninth McDonald's overall.

For what sum did Ray Kroc buy out the McDonald brothers in 1961?

$2.7 million was the price the brothers named in 1961; Kroc did not have it and had to borrow the money, and the brothers' original stand, left out of the deal, lost the right to the McDonald's name.

What was the McDonald brothers' streamlined kitchen method, the fast food industry's template, called?

The Speedee Service System, launched in 1948, ran the kitchen like an assembly line: the brothers let their carhops go and swapped plates and cutlery for paper wrappers, so no dishwasher was needed.

What did McDonald's original mascot, a winking chef from 1948, have for a head?

A hamburger formed the head of the winking chef on early signs; he gave way to the Golden Arches as the logo in 1962, when McDonald's wanted a more modern image, a year before Ronald McDonald appeared.

Who first sketched the two yellow arches that became the fast-food chain's Golden Arches?

Richard McDonald sketched the arches to make the stand catch the eye; at least one architect balked at them before they went up on the first franchise, in Phoenix, in 1953.

Franchisee Jim Delligatti created the Big Mac in 1967 at his restaurants around which US city?

Pittsburgh: Delligatti devised it in a suburban kitchen and first sold it in nearby Uniontown, later saying he had simply copied a rival chain's double-decker.

Which of these was a rejected early name for the Big Mac?

The Aristocrat and the Blue Ribbon Burger were both tried and dropped; the winning name came from Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old advertising secretary at headquarters.

In the 1974 jingle, a Big Mac's patties, sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions sit on what?

A sesame-seed bun closes the 1974 jingle's list; the 'special sauce' it mentions was demystified in 2012, when McDonald's executive chef showed on video how to mix it at home.

Which pop star sang 'I'm Lovin' It' when McDonald's launched the slogan worldwide in 2003?

Justin Timberlake fronted the ads and released a full-length version as a single; the slogan itself came from a small German agency and made its debut in Munich as 'Ich liebe es'.

Ray Kroc's meat-free rival to the Filet-O-Fish was a grilled slice of what?

Pineapple: Kroc's Hula Burger, a grilled slice with cheese on a bun, was tested against a franchisee's fish sandwich in 1962 and sold six to the fish's 350.

The Egg McMuffin, created by franchisee Herb Peterson, was designed to resemble which breakfast dish?

Eggs Benedict was Herb Peterson's model: he cooked the egg in a ring to keep it round, then asked Ray Kroc to come and look at something without telling him what it was.

According to McDonald's, Chicken McNuggets come in four shapes: the ball, the bell, the boot and what?

The bow tie, also called the bone, completes the set; McDonald's says the uniform shapes help every nugget cook evenly and make dipping more fun.

The McRib, introduced in 1981, is made from what meat?

The McRib patty is restructured boneless pork shoulder pressed into the shape of a tiny rack of ribs; unlike the US, where it appears only in limited runs, Germany has kept it on the menu year-round.

What flavour is McDonald's green Shamrock Shake, sold around St Patrick's Day?

Mint is the flavour today, but the 1970 original was lemon-lime, made with sherbet, and by 1973 it was just a vanilla shake dyed green.

Proceeds from Shamrock Shakes helped fund the first Ronald McDonald House in 1974, in which city?

Eagles player Fred Hill's daughter Kim was being treated for leukaemia; the team, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and local McDonald's operators, who donated Shamrock Shake proceeds, funded the house in 1974.

Until 1990, McDonald's fries in the US were cooked mainly in what?

Until 1990 the fries were cooked mostly in beef tallow; the switch to vegetable oil followed ads by heart-attack survivor Phil Sokolof, and in 2002 the chain paid $10 million to settle suits over undisclosed beef flavouring.

Which film franchise got the first Happy Meal tie-in, in December 1979?

Star Trek: the Star Trek Meal promoted Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with a comic strip of the film spread across the boxes, so children needed several meals to collect the whole set.

Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño's 1970s 'Ronald Menu', a forerunner of the Happy Meal, was created in which country?

Guatemala: she saw that adult portions were too big for children, so she bundled a small burger, small fries, an ice cream and a toy, an idea the Happy Meal is often traced to.

Which McDonald's sandwich did franchisee Al Bernardin introduce in Fremont, California, in 1971?

Quarter Pounder: Bernardin, once the company's head of product development, sold it under the slogan 'Today Fremont, tomorrow the world', and within two years it was on the national menu.

The McFlurry was invented in 1995 by a franchisee in which country?

Franchisee Ron McLellan's store in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, sold the first McFlurry in 1995; its hollow-handled spoon attaches to a blender spindle so the toppings are mixed in the cup.

The McCafé coffee-shop concept was created by McDonald's in which country in 1993?

Australia: McCafé began in Melbourne in 1993, championed by Charlie Bell, who later ran all of McDonald's, and it did so well there that the company copied it around the world.

Which television weatherman played the very first Ronald McDonald in 1963 Washington, D.C. commercials?

Willard Scott, later the Today show's weatherman, had played Bozo the Clown on Washington's WRC-TV; he wore a paper cup for a nose as Ronald, and was replaced when the clown went national.

Which McDonaldland character debuted in 1971 as a four-armed villain who stole shakes?

Grimace began as 'Evil Grimace', a scaly thief; after a poor early reception McDonald's removed two of his arms and recast him as Ronald's gentle best friend.

In the 1970s the creators of which children's TV show sued McDonald's, claiming McDonaldland copied it?

H.R. Pufnstuf's creators, Sid and Marty Krofft, sued in 1971 after an ad agency that had sounded them out about a campaign went ahead without them; a jury sided with them in 1973.

What colour is Ronald McDonald's hair?

Red hair has topped Ronald McDonald's yellow suit since the 1960s; McDonald's has used him far less since a wave of 'creepy clown' sightings in 2016.

McDonald's management training school awards its graduates a degree in what?

Hamburgerology is the 'degree' from the chain's training school, which began in 1961 in the basement of a restaurant in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and now has campuses from Tokyo to São Paulo.

What did Stella Liebeck first ask McDonald's for after its coffee burned her?

Her medical costs and lost income, about $20,000, were all Liebeck sought at first; McDonald's offered $800, so the case went to a jury, which held the company mostly to blame.

What finally happened to the 1994 McDonald's hot coffee jury award?

Cut, then settled: the judge reduced the punitive damages by more than 80 per cent, and the two sides then reached a confidential deal rather than spend years on appeals.

What did the FBI uncover about the McDonald's Monopoly game in 2001?

An insider was stealing winning pieces: Jerome Jacobson, security chief at the game's marketing firm, passed them to recruited 'winners' for a cut, a fraud retold in the documentary series McMillions.

In the US Monopoly promotion, collecting which two properties traditionally wins the top cash prize?

Boardwalk and Park Place, the dark-blue pair, win the top cash prize; Park Place is common but Boardwalk is printed in tiny numbers, so the set almost never gets completed by chance.

Which athlete had a McDonald's burger named after him in 1991?

Michael Jordan's McJordan Special, a bacon-and-barbecue burger, went on sale around Chicago; in 2012 a leftover gallon of its sauce sold on eBay for almost $10,000.

Who played Ray Kroc in the 2016 film The Founder?

Michael Keaton plays Kroc as a struggling salesman; for the shoot, a period McDonald's with a working kitchen went up on an empty lot in Georgia in about seven working days.

Which executive convinced Kroc that McDonald's real business was owning land under its restaurants?

Harry Sonneborn's plan had the company take over restaurant sites and sublet them to franchisees, through a Franchise Realty Corporation set up in 1956; rent became its financial engine.

For how long did Morgan Spurlock eat only McDonald's food in the documentary Super Size Me?

30 days was the experiment; six weeks after the film's Sundance premiere McDonald's began dropping its Super Size portions, insisting the move had nothing to do with it.

The McDonald's in Sedona, Arizona, has arches of what unusual colour?

Sedona's arches are turquoise blue: in 1993 city officials ruled that yellow would clash with the surrounding sandstone scenery, and the company's first alternative shade was accepted.

The Big Mac in India is sold under what name, since it contains no beef?

The Maharaja Mac uses chicken patties: McDonald's sells no beef anywhere in India, and in 2012 it announced its first vegetarian-only restaurants there.

After McDonald's left Russia in 2022, its restaurants reopened under what new name?

Vkusno i tochka, roughly 'Tasty, and that's it', opened that June under former licensee Alexander Govor; McDonald's kept an option to buy the business back within 15 years.

Which side dish did the McDonald brothers' 1948 menu offer before french fries replaced it?

Potato chips were one of just nine items on the relaunched menu, which kept only what sold fast and cheaply; fries took their place the following year.

The oldest McDonald's still operating, opened in 1953, stands in which Los Angeles-area city?

Downey's stand was franchised by the McDonald brothers themselves, not Ray Kroc's company, so his modernisation rules never applied and it kept its original arches and walk-up windows.

Which Major League Baseball team did Ray Kroc own from 1974 until his death?

The San Diego Padres were about to be sold and moved to Washington, D.C. when Kroc bought them in 1974; at his first home opener he grabbed the stadium microphone and told fans how stupidly the team was playing.

The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opened in 1990 on which Moscow square?

Pushkin Square's opening on January 31, 1990 drew tens of thousands of Muscovites; the deal grew out of talks with Soviet officials that began at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, 14 years earlier.

Which pizza chain did McDonald's own from 1999 until 2003?

McDonald's bought Donatos Pizza in 1999 and sold it back to founder Jim Grote in December 2003; it also owned Boston Market until 2007 and held a majority stake in Chipotle until October 2006.

Fred Turner, who rose to become McDonald's chief executive, started at the company doing what job?

Grill operator was Fred Turner's first job; soon overseeing operations, he wrote the manual that told every restaurant exactly how to cook, down to the thickness of the fries.

Which publication has run the Big Mac Index since 1986?

The Economist invented it as a light-hearted test: a Big Mac is much the same everywhere, so comparing its price across countries hints at whether a currency is over- or undervalued.

Lou Groen invented the Filet-O-Fish in 1962 because his Cincinnati customers avoided meat on which day?

Fridays: Groen's neighbourhood was heavily Catholic, and on meatless Fridays his customers went to a rival's fish sandwich instead, so he battered halibut and pitched it to Ray Kroc.

Ray Kroc of McDonald's trained as a wartime ambulance driver beside which future entertainment mogul?

Walt Disney and Kroc met as First World War trainees in Connecticut. Decades later Kroc wrote to him asking for a McDonald's at Disneyland, which opened without one.

The McDonald brothers planned their kitchen by chalking each piece of equipment, full size, onto what?

A tennis court behind the McDonald family home became the drawing board. Drawing everything at true size let the brothers find the efficiencies they wanted before the new building went up.

Which Nordic country lost every McDonald's in 2009 after a financial crash made imports too costly?

Iceland's franchisee reopened every one of the restaurants two days later under a home-grown name, Metro.

Fans of which animated series pushed McDonald's to bring back its 1998 Szechuan dipping sauce in 2018?

Rick and Morty opened its third season with its mad scientist obsessing over the sauce, which was first made to promote the film Mulan.

The website McBroken, launched in 2020, tracks which notoriously unreliable McDonald's equipment?

Ice cream machines at McDonald's also turn out its shakes, and the best-known model is notorious for breaking down. McBroken shows on a map which ones are working.

Which tech billionaire worked as a short-order line cook at McDonald's while he was in high school?

Jeff Bezos cooked at McDonald's as a teenager, more than a decade before he founded Amazon in a rented garage.

Which movie-rental brand began as a McDonald's venture, with early kiosks in the chain's restaurants?

Redbox grew out of a McDonald's expansion scheme called Project 361. Its DVD rentals were first tested at 140 of the chain's restaurants in Denver and other test cities.

Which Colorado-born burrito chain was majority-owned by McDonald's until it sold up in 2006?

Chipotle had only 16 restaurants when McDonald's first invested in 1998. The money helped it pass 500 before the two companies parted.

Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's builder Ray Kroc, left most of her fortune in 2003 to which charity?

The Salvation Army was asked to spend the bequest on community recreation centres across the US, which carry the Kroc name.

Which chain passed McDonald's at the end of 2010 as the world's largest by restaurant count?

Subway finished 2010 with 33,749 restaurants, about a thousand more than McDonald's had.

Which K-pop group's McDonald's meal, with two Korean-inspired sauces, reached fifty countries in 2021?

BTS put their name to an order of Chicken McNuggets, fries and a Coke. The Sweet Chili and Cajun sauces were based on McDonald's recipes from South Korea.

Since the 1970s McDonald's has sponsored an all-star game for top high-school players of which sport?

Basketball's McDonald's All-American Game began in 1978 as an East against West contest for the best boys, and a girls' game joined it in 2002.

McDonald's was an official sponsor from 1976 until the 2010s of which global sporting event?

The Olympic Games once cost the chain millions: a 1984 giveaway tied to American medals backfired when a Soviet-led boycott let the US win far more than expected.

Which 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy features McDowell's, a burger joint forever dodging McDonald's lawyers?

Coming to America casts John Amos as Cleo McDowell, who insists his restaurant differs from the real thing in various insignificant ways.

Over McDonald's objections, which word for dead-end employment entered Merriam-Webster's dictionary in 2003?

McJob had been in print since at least 1986, and the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects.

Which McDonald's dessert was deep-fried in the US until a baked version replaced it in 1992?

Apple pie joined the menu in 1968 and was only ever deep-fried until 1992, when baked pies replaced the fried ones in most of the American market.

Since France does not weigh in pounds, McDonald's sells its Quarter Pounder there under which name?

Royal Cheese is also the name in Belgium, Croatia and Cyprus, while Hungary, Latvia and Poland call the same burger a McRoyal.

McDonald's began swapping its logo's traditional background across Europe in 2009 for which colour?

Green, in a deep hunter shade, was chosen to give the chain a more eco-friendly image. About 100 German restaurants were due to switch by the end of that year.

McDonald's left its longtime suburban campus in Oak Brook in 2018 for a new headquarters in which city?

Chicago's West Loop became the company's home after 47 years in Oak Brook. McDonald's had moved out to the suburb from an office in the city's Loop in 1971.

Long before McDonald's, Ray Kroc earned money in the 1920s playing which instrument in bands?

Piano playing was one of several jobs Kroc held through the 1920s and the Great Depression, when he also worked as a real estate agent.

Birdie, the first female McDonaldland character, arrived in 1980 to promote which part of the menu?

Breakfast was a new line for the chain when Birdie arrived, a yellow bird dressed in a pink jumpsuit, flight cap and scarf.

When the McDonald brothers opened the original McDonald's in 1940, its name advertised which speciality?

Barbecue led the menu at McDonald's Famous Barbecue, but by 1948 the brothers saw that most of their profit came from burgers and rebuilt the business around them.

French farmer José Bové wrecked a half-built McDonald's in 1999 over US import curbs on which product?

Roquefort producers were being hurt by the American restrictions, Bové argued. Later that year he joined the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle.

In the McDonald's operating motto QSC&V, three letters mean quality, service and value; what is the C?

Cleanliness is more than a slogan here: the motto is written into the procedures McDonald's uses to evaluate its franchisees.

When the McDonald brothers rebuilt their drive-in for speed in 1948, which twenty workers did they fire?

Carhops had brought orders out to parked cars. Without them, trade suffered for months, because customers did not expect to walk up to a window.

Which burger chain, founded in Kansas in 1921, pioneered the methods the McDonald brothers later built on?

White Castle is generally credited as the world's first fast-food burger chain, and it had its methods working more than two decades before the brothers built theirs.

McDonald's worked with the Environmental Defense Fund to replace burger boxes made of which material?

Polystyrene clamshells gave way to paper, one of several changes that helped McDonald's cut its restaurant waste by 30 percent over the next decade.

Cuba's only McDonald's is off limits to ordinary Cubans because it stands where?

On the Guantanamo Bay naval base, the restaurant serves only people with access to the American installation, so Cuban citizens cannot eat there.

McDonald's 'McLibel' suit against two activists became the longest trial in which country's history?

England's judges awarded McDonald's £40,000, which it chose not to collect. A European human rights ruling later found that the two activists had been denied a fair trial.

Which New York Times columnist argued in 1996 that no two countries with a McDonald's had gone to war?

Thomas Friedman called it the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention: a middle class big enough to support the chain, he reasoned, loses its interest in fighting wars.

Which journalist's 2001 book Fast Food Nation took a critical look at McDonald's and its industry?

Eric Schlosser began the book as a Rolling Stone assignment to look at the country through what it eats, and the magazine ran his reporting before the book came out.

Which Idaho potato magnate agreed by handshake with Ray Kroc to supply McDonald's with frozen fries?

J.R. Simplot had left school in the eighth grade at 14, and he died at 99 as the oldest billionaire on the Forbes 400.

Which British island territory lost its only McDonald's when a US base shut, then outlawed franchised restaurants?

Bermuda's lone McDonald's stood on an American naval air station and closed with it in 1995. Two years later a law blocked a plan to bring the chain back.

Which local chain withstood McDonald's 1981 arrival in the Philippines by cooking for Filipino palates?

Jollibee had been set up by Tony Tan Caktiong in 1978, three years before its American rival landed, and went on to become the Philippines' top fast-food chain.

Asia's first McDonald's opened in 1971 inside a department store in which Tokyo shopping district?

Ginza's Mitsukoshi store housed the restaurant, and Japanese customers know the chain by the short names makku and makudo.

The McDonald brothers, sons of Irish immigrants, were born and raised in which northeastern US state?

New Hampshire was home at both ends of the story: the brothers were born in Manchester, and the younger of the two died there in 1998.

What is the title of the 1977 memoir in which Ray Kroc told the story of building McDonald's?

Grinding It Out was co-written by Kroc and reissued in 2016, when it served as the basis for a Hollywood film about him.

Which 1996 McDonald's burger, pitched at adults with a record ad budget, became a costly flop?

Arch Deluxe was meant to shed the chain's child-centred image, but it was discontinued soon after launch when it failed to catch on.

McDonald's management school taught its first class in 1961 in which part of one of its restaurants?

The basement classroom was in a restaurant in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. It grew into a network of campuses in cities including Tokyo, London, Munich and Shanghai.

The first McDonald's built with golden arches, a franchise opened in 1953, stood in which Arizona city?

Phoenix franchisee Neil Fox surprised the brothers by putting the McDonald's name on his stand, which opened in May 1953.

After selling Ray Kroc their name, the McDonald brothers had to rename their original restaurant what?

The Big M lasted only six more years. An angry Kroc opened a McDonald's close by, and the brothers' stand closed.

Protests against a McDonald's near Rome's Spanish Steps in 1986 gave rise to which global movement?

Slow Food became an international movement three years later, when delegates from 15 countries signed its founding manifesto in Paris.

McDonald's bought which rotisserie chicken chain in 2000, mainly to get hold of its real estate?

Boston Market turned out to be worth keeping: McDonald's ran and expanded the brand for seven years before selling it to Sun Capital Partners.

McDonald's first restaurant in a communist country opened in 1988 in which Yugoslav city?

Belgrade's branch was also the first McDonald's anywhere in the Balkans, and it beat the chain's Hungarian debut, which came later the same year.

Which country became home in 1992 to the first McDonald's in both Africa and the Arab world?

Morocco's opening meant that McDonald's was operating on every inhabited continent for the first time.

Which McDonaldland character, dropped in 1985, spent his commercials trying to steal Filet-O-Fish?

Captain Crook, a pirate introduced in 1971, had a second job in the commercials: translating the Hamburglar's gibberish.

Which sociologist coined the term McDonaldization for fast-food principles spreading through society?

George Ritzer named the hallmarks of the process as efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.

Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's builder Ray Kroc, left a record gift of over $200 million to which broadcaster?

NPR got the money because Joan Kroc believed deeply in the power of public radio, and it used the gift to expand its news coverage and lower its fees.

South America's first McDonald's opened in which beachfront district of Rio de Janeiro?

Copacabana got its restaurant in the same year that McDonald's first reached Southeast Asia, as the chain pushed into two new regions at once.

McDonald's bought a one-third stake in 2001 in which British high-street chain, selling it on in 2008?

Pret a Manger kept its independence throughout: the 33% stake was non-controlling, and McDonald's sold it to the private equity group Bridgepoint Capital.