From Rags to Riches: A Speedee Success
Introduction
Imagine how the world would be different from today if fast food wasn’t so… fast. Places like Chick-fil-A or Burger King would just be like any old restaurant; the service would have been just as slow as any restaurant. Even drive thru’s would possibly not exist. But that’s where Richard and Maurice McDonald come in. They put the entire speed factor into their service, and their system would go on to be used in many other fast-food restaurants. Though it might not look like it, they were truly some of the greatest minds in the food business. They came from a small roadside shack to a huge empire consisting of speed, quality, and deliciousness. They were two young men who, after overcoming a lot of obstacles, finally succeeded and probably changed the world as we know it.
Early Life
Richard and Maurice McDonald had a small, poor family. Maurice James McDonald, born November 26, 1902, and Richard James McDonald, born on February 16, 1909, became the two sons of Irish immigrants Patrick James McDonald and Margarete Anna Curran McDonald. Their parents both separately came to Manchester, New Hampshire, with their families as very young children. They stayed there pretty much their whole lives, and that was also where they met and had their first and only children, Richard and Maurice. Their father, Patrick, had worked at a “20,000-employee G.P. Krafts shoe factory in Manchester when he was laid off after 42 years” (Stice). His shoe manufacturer boss had told him that he was simply just too old to do the job any longer, and that was how all his four decades of hard work had just been destroyed. The brothers saw how easily an entire lifetime’s worth of hard work and money could vanish in an instant, with just a couple of words. But instead of feeling sad or depressed, the brothers used their father's fall to have a rise on their own, “Determined not to let that happen to them” (From Movies to Hamburgers). They even vowed to be millionaires by the time they were in their fifties, with a surprising amount of hope, because they knew that was exactly the opposite of where their father was at that age.
Beginning of Career
Clearly looking at the McDonald brothers’ history, they were rather unlucky in the marketing business. Determined to succeed in contrast to their father, they set off to California in hopes of hitting themselves a jackpot. But they didn’t move to California with “visions of burgers and fries in their eyes”(Stice). They first came into the fast food field after giving entertainment a shot. With the little they had saved up, they bought a “750-seat Mission theater 20 miles outside of Los Angeles, put in a snack bar, and renamed it the Beacon” (Stice). Unfortunately, their timing couldn’t have been worse, with their grand opening being amid the peak of the Great Depression. Constantly behind on their bills, they decided to sell the theater and head for the fast food department. Obviously, they didn’t actually head for the fast food department, they headed for the city of San Bernardino, California, where they opened their first food stand. But it wasn’t originally just McDonald’s. It was called McDonald’s Barbeque. They hired carhops, people to bring the customers’ orders to their car, and reused the old movie theater uniforms. But it didn’t take long for the brothers to realize that the burgers were giving the most profits, and when they did, they got rid of their original formula, shut down for a while, and made some “drastic changes when they reopened” (Stice).
Significant Accomplishments
The brothers’ changes after their reopening was arguably one of the best choices they had made before the arrival of salesman Ray Kroc. The McDonald brothers had changed a lot of things from the old McDonald’s Barbeque, but not everyone was so happy about that at the start. Basically, they got rid of mostly everything that wasn’t popular on the old menu and fired all of their twenty female carhops. “Customers were now expected to get out of their cars” and have to walk all the way to the counter to place their order and form a line outside the stand instead of the old carhops that came to them (Stice). Unfortunately for them, most people weren’t happy about these changes, and, for a brief moment, their “once-bustling business came to a halt” (Stice). Now they had their fired carhops laughing at them, thinking they were failures once again. “Customers would drive up and leave as soon as they realized a car hop wouldn't be coming over to take their order” (Stice). Fortunately, after a few months, some of the nearby construction workers and cab drivers had slowly started to trickle in, and the McDonald’s brothers’ small stand was quickly back in business. After reopening their doors, the brothers' business "began to take off with families and businessmen drawn by the cheap, 15-cent hamburgers and a low-cost menu" (Klein). But the brothers’ greatest change that would come to create today’s fast service of McDonald’s, was definitely the brothers decided to make their own quick system to greatly increase their sale rate. Inspired by “Henry Ford’s assembly-line production of automobiles,” the brothers came up with their own ‘Speedee Service System’ which mechanized their tiny burger house kitchen (Klein). Each person had their own task, and most of the food was pre-prepared. “This allowed McDonald’s to prep its food quickly—and even ahead of time—when an order was placed” (Klein). Despite their recent stumbles and downfalls, this surprisingly efficient system would eventually go on to be used in many popular fast-food businesses of today.
Impact On The World
Even though the McDonald brothers were not well recognized as the founders of McDonald’s, they sure did help a lot of other companies, including their own, to become fast and successful. Their Speedee service system was used in many famous companies- such as Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Sonic, and many more- to grow quickly just like McDonald’s did. Their Speedee Service System even went on to help create the term ‘fast food’ because of the fast and easy food found in the restaurants. If not for Richard and Maurice McDonald, people would have to wait much longer for just a burger and some fries. Their unbelievably fast service made them millions, and they did end up completing the vow they made in New Hampshire. “With labor costs slashed and revenue growing to $350,000 a year,” the brothers knew that they had struck gold. Soon, “the McDonald brothers saw their profits double” (Klein). But not only did McDonald’s make for a quick snack, it also became a savior stand “because of its affordable price” and the food is easily but efficiently wrapped. “It is a solution for people who are hungry” (Ganteung). Better yet, McDonald’s has over 14,000 locations in the United States, with McDonald’s becoming a common location in over 100 countries across the globe. McDonald’s has existed for a long time, yet it is still extremely popular in the food business. Its food makes for a fast and delicious lunch, but also a cheap and affordable meal for those in need.
Lessons Learned From Their Life
Richard and Maurice McDonald came a long way and with a surprising amount of success, considering where they started. Luckily, they did not let their father’s downfall depress them. Instead, they let it help them succeed. Their grand perseverance brought them up a long way, and despite their constant failures, they ended up becoming some of the richest people of their time. They had some great perseverance that led them down the better path, the path that would lead them to great achievements. This makes them some great role models, and their determination and ability to overcome insane obstacles make them some one-in-a-million people. Most would have quit for all the times they had failed, but they kept going. Their can-do attitude granted them millions, and they are some great people to look up to. These virtues are not common in many people, so after one or two fails, a common person would have quit. But they didn’t, and they kept persisting until they found what they were looking for.