Word: mcdonaldization
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...strength of such low-priced assembly-line feeding, Ray A. Kroc, 59, has built his Chicago-based McDonald's Corp. in less than seven years from a paper company on paper with $1,000 in assets into the nation's largest drive-in chain-a string of 294 highway stops stretching from Connecticut to California. The McDonald menu is rigidly limited: besides hamburgers and milk shakes, McDonald drive-ins offer only French fried potatoes (10?) and soft drinks (10? and 15?). But on this limited bill of fare, they expect to ring up sales of $60 million this...
...series of detours. After early stretches as a jazz pianist and musical director of Oak Park, Ill. radio station WGES, Kroc spent 17 years selling paper cups and then Multimixer milk-shake makers. One day in 1954 he stopped at a drive-in run by two brothers named McDonald in San Bernardino, Calif. Impressed by their efficient operation, Kroc struck a bargain with the brothers: in return for use of the McDonald name and techniques, he agreed to pay them 0.5% of all future sales of what he already envisioned as a nationwide chain of franchised drive...
Frank Patton, 41, quit his industrial-equipment sales job four years ago to take the Rockford franchise. His business has increased 10% to 20% every year, last year grossed $210,000 and nearly $40,000 in pretax profits. Among other McDonald licensees are an ex-research chemist, a former Waldorf-Astoria cook, a Chicago detective, and the onetime head of research at Kraft Foods (which supplies a special cheddar for McDonald's 19? cheeseburger...
Hamburger College. Before opening for business, licensees must spend 3½ weeks at McDonald's "Hamburger College" in Chicago, where, with the aid of such gadgets as an automatic patty flipper, they master the technique of cooking up to 36 hamburgers at a time. Textbook is the 81-page McDonald's Manual, which specifies every operation in detail, e.g., hamburgers must be locally purchased "commercial" grade chuck (fat content 17% to 20%), formed into 1.6-oz. patties 3⅝ in. in diameter. Each is to be garnished with ¼ oz. onions, one teaspoon of mustard, one tablespoon...
Scorning relaxation despite his mounting fortune-he owns 52.5% of McDonald's Corp. stock, has given the rest to employees-Kroc still spends half his time darting about the country in a company Aero Commander to size up new locations and licensees. To keep his drive-ins from becoming teen-ager jukebox jungles, he tries to build his trade around the station-wagon set. ("We count church steeples, not cars, when we are deciding where to locate.") And despite mounting competition from a score of rival chains that have copied his system, he confidently expects to have 550 drive...