Ray Kroc: the hamburger king / Ray Kroc: kral hamburgru

by Tanja on August 10, 2007

Ray Kroc was born in 1902 in Chicago, Illinois. His Czech grandparents, however, came to he US from Stupno (near Pilsen). In 1917 a 15-year old Kroc lied about his age and joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. He never left for Europe though because the war ended. Disappointed Kroc had to find work to feed himself. He played the piano for a radio station during nights and functioned as a salesman of paper cups during the day. Later on he obtained exclusive marketing rights for selling the five-spindle multimixer – the miracle of speed and efficiency of that time. For next 17 years Kroc traveled the US selling these mixers until he encountered the San Bernardino restaurant in California, owned by Dick and Mac McDonald brothers. This simple-menu hamburger restaurant ordered 8 mixers on the spot. Kroc was quite blown away by the restaurant’s efficiency and offered the owners a partnership where his part would be building McDonald’s stores across the USA. Kroc says: “I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.” By 1965 the McDonald clown character was familiar to 96% of American children, which is more that knew the name of the president of the USA. After Ray Kroc died in 1984 the restaurant chain became progressively stale and boring, something Kroc would never approve during his lifetime. Today McDonald Corporation is the world’s largest chain of fast-food restaurants are in more than 120 countries: