Raymond Albert Kroc(1902–1984)

Kroc's first job was with his uncle, Earl Edmund Sweet, in a soda fountain the summer before he started high school. The next summer Ray dropped out of school, and he used the money he made the previous summer to rent a building with two friends. They sold sheet music and small instruments, but after a few months the business failed.

In the early 1940s, Kroc became the exclusive distributor of a multimixer that could mix five milk shakes simultaneously. Two of his best customers were the McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice (Mac), who bought eight of the mixers for their fast-food restaurants. The McDonalds had started with a group of hot-dog carts, and now had a chain of restaurants—for which Richard McDonald designed the "golden arches" logo and the "number-of-hamburgers-sold" sign.

In 1954, Kroc went to San Bernardino, California, to see the McDonald brothers' restaurant, which used an assembly-line format to prepare foods. Kroc decided to set up a chain of drive-in restaurants based on the McDonalds' format and convinced the brothers to sell him the rights to franchise McDonald's restaurants nationwide. His first restaurant opened on April 15, 1955, in Des Plaines, Illinois. Kroc also began selling franchises on the condition that the owners managed their restaurants. Kroc was known for his obsessive cleanliness, and he wanted the restaurants kept very clean.

In 1961, Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers for $2,700,000. At this time he had established 228 restaurants, and sales had reached $37,000,000. By 1963 more than 1 billion hamburgers had been sold.

Key words: businessman founder of Mcdonald's

雷·克罗克(1902–1984)

雷·克罗克在芝加哥郊外开设了自己的第一家麦当劳餐厅。经过50 年的发展，麦当劳已成为全球最大的快餐连锁集团。不过，麦当劳在迅速积累起巨大声名的同时，也饱受批评和指责。

营养学家指出，麦当劳的高热量煎炸食物让美国人整个胖了一圈”，麦当劳也因此成为众多肥胖人士控告的对象。不过，麦当劳并不认为他们应该为美国人的肥胖问题以及其他健康问题负责，因为这完全是个人的责任”。虽然克罗克被人们称谓麦当劳之父”，但最早的麦当劳餐厅并不是他创立的，而且麦当劳真正的年龄其实也不止50 岁。

上溯到20 世纪50 年代初，克罗克还是一名牛奶搅拌器的销售商。有一次，他卖给加利福利亚一家餐厅8 台牛奶搅拌器。他对此十分好奇，因为他觉得一家餐厅用不着添置8 台牛奶搅拌器，于是他便前往那家餐厅想看个究竟。结果，那家餐厅的两位麦当劳兄弟的经营理念让他深受启发价格低廉、快速服务、能让年轻人在车里享用。

雷·克罗克认为麦当劳兄弟的这一做法是革命性的，完全可以加以复制到其他地方经营，于是便有了他在芝加哥的第一家麦当劳餐厅。最初，雷·克罗克是以加盟店的形式与麦当劳兄弟合作的。1961 年，雷·克罗克以270 万美元的价格从麦当劳兄弟手中购买了麦当劳餐厅的所有权，并将麦当劳餐厅以连锁形式推向全美国。到了1968年，麦当劳开始向海外进军，最终成为了全球拥有最多分店的快餐巨头”。