History of McDonald's
This article is intended to give an overview of the history of McDonald's. Early history. Founding by Richard and Maurice McDonald. The McDonald family moved from Manchester, New Hampshire to Hollywood, California in the late 1930s, where brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald ("Dick" and "Mac") began working as set movers and handymen at Motion-Picture studios. In 1937, their father, Patrick McDonald, opened The Airdrome, a food stand, on Huntington Drive (Route 66) near the Monrovia Airport in the Los Angeles County city of Monrovia, California. In October 1948, the McDonald brothers realized that most  of their profits came from hamburgers. They closed down their successful carhop drive-in to establish a streamlined system with a simple menu, which consisted of only hamburgers, cheeseburgers, potato chips, coffee, soft drinks, and apple pie. In April 1952, the brothers decided they needed an entirely new building to achieve two goals: further efficiency improvements, and a more eye-catching appearance. They collected recommendations for an architect and interviewed at least four, choosing Stanley Clark Meston, who practiced in nearby Fontana. The brothers and Meston worked together closely in the design of their new building. They achieved the extra  efficiencies they needed by, among other things, drawing the actual measurements of every piece of equipment in chalk on a tennis court behind the McDonald house (with Meston's assistant, Charles Fish). The new design achieved a high level of notice thanks to gleaming surfaces of red and white ceramic tile, stainless steel, brightly colored sheet metal, and glass; pulsing red, white, yellow, and green neon; and two 25-foot yellow sheet-metal arches trimmed in neon, which they named the "golden arches" at the design stage. A third, smaller arch sign at the roadside hosted a pudgy character in  a chef's hat, known as Speedee, striding across the top, trimmed in animated neon. Further marketing techniques were implemented to change McDonald's from a sit-down restaurant to a fast food chain. They used such things as turning off the heating to prevent people wanting to stay so long, fixed and angled seating so the customer would sit over their food promoting them to eat faster, spreading the seats farther apart so being less of a sociable place to dine in, and giving their customers branded cone shaped cups forcing them to hold their drink while eating which  would speed up the eating process. In late 1953, with only a rendering of Meston's design in hand, the brothers began seeking franchisees. Their first franchisee was Neil Fox, a distributor for General Petroleum Corporation. Fox's stand, the first with Meston's golden arches design, opened in May 1953 at Central Avenue and Indian School Road in Phoenix, Arizona. Their second franchisee was the team of Fox's brother-in-law Roger Williams and Burdette "Bud" Landon, both of whom also worked for General Petroleum. Williams and Landon opened their stand on August 18, 1953, at 10207 Lakewood  Boulevard in Downey, California. The Downey stand is the oldest surviving McDonald's restaurant. Ray Kroc joins and expands franchise operation. In 1954, Ray Kroc, a seller of Prince Castle brand Multimixer milkshake machines, learned that the McDonald brothers were using eight of his machines in their San Bernardino restaurant. His curiosity was piqued, and he visited the restaurant with his friend Charles Lewis, who had suggested to Kroc several improvements to the McDonald's burger recipe. At this point, the McDonald brothers had six franchise locations in operation. Believing the McDonald's formula was a ticket to success, Kroc  suggested they franchise their restaurants throughout the United States. The brothers were skeptical that the self-service approach could succeed in colder, rainier climates; furthermore, their thriving business in San Bernardino, and franchises already operating or planned, made them reluctant to risk a national venture. Kroc offered to take the major responsibility for setting up the new franchises elsewhere. He returned to his home outside of Chicago with rights to set up McDonald's restaurants throughout the country, except in a handful of territories in California and Arizona already licensed by the McDonald brothers. The brothers were to receive 0.5 % of gross sales. Sonneborn model and shift to real estate holdings. In 1956, Ray Kroc met Harry J. Sonneborn, a former VP of finance for Tastee-Freez, who offered an idea to accelerate the growth and investment grade of Kroc's planned McDonald's operation: own the real estate that future franchises would be built on. Kroc hired Sonneborn and his plan was executed through forming a separate company, Franchise Realty Corp, to hold McDonald's real estate. The new company signed leases and took out mortgages for both lands and buildings, passing these costs on to the franchisee with  a 20-40% markup and a reduced initial deposit of $950. The "Sonneborn model" of real estate ownership within the franchise persists to this day, and may be the most important financial decision in the company's history. McDonald's present-day real estate holdings represent $37.7Bn on its balance sheet, about 99% of the company's assets and 35% of its annual gross revenue. 1960s and 1970s. By 1960, McDonald's restaurants were grossing $56 million annually. The growth in U.S. automobile use that came with suburbanization and the interstate highway system contributed heavily to McDonald 's success. In 1961 Kroc's conflict over the vision of the company with the founding brothers had grown, and he asked them how much money they wanted to leave their business to him entirely. The brothers asked for $2.7 million (about $21.6 million in today's dollars), which Kroc did not have. Harry J. Sonneborn was able to raise the money for him, and Kroc bought the founding brothers out. This purchase laid the groundwork to positioning the company for an IPO and furthering the aim at making McDonald's the number one fast-food chain in  the country. The exact process of how the company was sold is not well-recorded; it is depicted as a hostile takeover by Kroc in the 2016 biographical film "The Founder," but that portrayal is disputed, and interviews of the time speak of a more voluntary transition. Kroc and Sonneborn had a falling out over expansion of the company, leading to Sonneborn's resignation in 1967. Kroc took over the title of CEO and president. McDonald's success in the 1960s was in large part due to the company's skillful marketing and flexible response to customer demand. In 1962 , the Filet-O-Fish sandwich, billed as "the fish that catches people", was introduced in McDonald's restaurants. In 1967, the Big Mac was created by a franchisee, Jim Delligatt,i and was added to McDonald's national menu the next year. There was some skepticism about the company's phenomenal growth internationally. When Wally and Hugh Morris approached the corporation in 1974 to bring McDonald's into New Zealand, they were firmly shunned by Kroc who, citing a visit to the country, stated, "There aren't any people... I never met a more dead-than-alive hole in my  life." Persistence by the brothers eventually led to their request being granted in May 1975. They negotiated a deal with the corporation by selling New Zealand cheese to the US to offset the high costs of importing plant equipment. The first New Zealand restaurant opened in June 1976 at Porirua, near Wellington, to much more success than the corporation predicted. 1980s – 2010s. The first McDonald's Express locations opened in 1991. These are smaller-scale prototypes, usually constructed in prefabricated buildings or urban storefronts, that do not feature certain menu items such as milkshakes and Quarter Pounders. The first McDonald 's in Mainland China opened in Dongmen, Shenzhen in October 1990. The Extra Value Meal, a burger, fries and drink combination deal, was introduced from 1993, originally as part of a "Jurassic Park" tie-in. In 2000, a McDonald's in Dearborn, Michigan in Greater Detroit was the first one in Michigan and the only one east of the Mississippi River to offer halal food for Muslim customers. In January 2012, the company announced revenue for 2011 reached an all-time high of $27 billion, and that 2,400 restaurants would be updated and 1,300 new ones opened worldwide. In  the middle of the decade, the restaurant began to suffer from declining profits. In response, McDonald's began to offer a limited selection of its breakfast menu all day starting in 2015. At first, the launch was unpopular with franchisees who claimed that the changes caused service to slow down. However, the plan paid off with CNBC reporting that the company's fourth quarter earnings "easily topped analysts' forecasts".