The Big Mac

The Big Mac is a hamburger sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced in the Greater Pittsburgh area in 1967 and across the United States in 1968. It is one of the company's flagship products and signature dishes. The Big Mac contains two beef patties, cheese, shredded lettuce, pickles, minced onions, and a Thousand Island-type dressing advertised as "special sauce", on a three-slice sesame-seed bun.

#### History

The Big Mac was created by Jim Delligatti, who operated several McDonald's restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. It was created in the kitchen of Delligatti's first McDonald's franchise, located on McKnight Road in suburban Ross Township.

The Big Mac debuted at the McDonald's owned by Delligatti in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on April 22, 1967, selling for US$0.45 (equivalent to $3.95 in 2022).

#### Big Boy's Classic Double Deck Cheeseburger

The signature Big Boy hamburger is the original double deck hamburger.

The novel hamburger started as a joke. In February 1937, some local big band musicians, who were regular customers of Bob's Pantry, visited the restaurant. When ordering, bass player Stewie Strange asked, "How about something different, something special?" Bob Wian improvised, creating the first (then unnamed) Big Boy, intending the thing "look ridiculous, like a leaning tower".

Demand for "the special" soared but Wian sought a "snappy" name, which became Big Boy. In 1938, the Big Boy hamburger cost 15¢ (equivalent to $2.68 in 2018).

In 2018, the Big Boy cost $6.49 in Michigan. Several slogans were used from the 1950s through the 1970s to promote the Big Boy hamburger, such as, "A Meal in One on a Double–Deck Bun" and "Twice as Big, Twice as Good". On menus from that period, it was called, "...the Nationally Famous, Original Double–Deck Hamburger...".

When McDonald's franchisee Jim Delligatti invented the iconic Big Mac in 1967, he was more than 30 years late to the party. Delligatti was inspired by rival chain, created in 1937 by Bob Wian at his Glendale, California burger stand.

"My ideas were working out all right, but a hamburger joint is just a hamburger joint until it wins a reputation," Wian told The Milwaukee Journal in 1958. "It takes an idea to give a place a reputation. I was always looking for just the right idea and then one night in February of 1937 some of the Glendale high school orchestra dropped in, as was their custom. "'The usual burger, I guess,' one ordered. Then another asked, 'How about something different, something special?' I took this challenge and got to work. The guy raved and before long my special was pulling in trade." At the time the Big Mac was introduced, McDonald's was lacking a signature burger. By 1968, it was on the menu in every restaurant, and soon accounted for nearly one fifth of all sales. Today, roughly one billion are sold every year.

Speaking to the *Los Angeles Times* in 1993, Delligatti conceded he didn't come up with the idea of a double-decker burger. "This wasn't like discovering the light bulb," he said. "The bulb was already there. All I did was screw it in the socket."

Sources:

* https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/lego-big-mac-billion-dollar-products-that-were-complete-rip-offs/V5Q47F7EMONK6XTSSEUD6AVEAU/?c\_id=3&objectid=12087944
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big\_Mac