Grinding It Out

T H E M A K I N G O F M C D O N A L D ’ S

The Autobiography of

RAY KROC

Contents

1. Pounding the Pavement

2. The Multi-Mixer Gamble

3. Meeting the Brothers

4. Des Plaines: The First Arch

5. The Sonneborn Strategy

6. The $2.7 Million Handshake

7. The Gospel of QSC & V

8. Innovation and the Big Mac

9. Looking Back from the Top

Introduction: Persistence

Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc McDonald’s Founder Autobiography — page 3

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1. Pounding the Pavement

was born in 1902 in Oak Park, a town of churches and

quiet streets. My father worked for Western Union, and he

had a hard-nosed approach to work that rubbed off on

me. In 1917, I lied about my age to join the Red Cross as an

ambulance driver. I was just a kid from Illinois, training in

Connecticut with a fellow named Walt Disney. After the war, I

became a jazz pianist, but my real education started when I

began selling paper cups for Lily-Tulip. I spent seventeen years

hauling a heavy sample case, learning that a salesman's greatest

asset isn't his product—it's his persistence.

“Work is the meat in the burger of life.”

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2. The Multi-Mixer Gamble

y 1937, I saw a machine that changed my life: the

Prince Castle Multi-Mixer. It could churn out five

shakes at once. I took a massive risk, quit my steady

job, and became the exclusive distributor. For years, I

crisscrossed the country, living out of suitcases. Then, in 1954, I

got an order that didn't make sense. A small restaurant in San

Bernardino, California, wanted eight mixers. I had to see it.

When I arrived, I didn't see just a burger stand; I saw the future

of the American meal. It was clean, it was fast, and the line of

people was a mile long.

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3. Meeting the Brothers

aurice and Richard McDonald were nice enough

fellows, but they lacked the fire. They had perfected

what they called the 'Speedee Service System.' No

carhops, no forks, no plates. Just a limited menu and a kitchen

that ran like a Swiss watch. I couldn't sleep that night. I kept

seeing those golden arches—which were then just a design on

their building—duplicated on every corner in America. I told

them, 'I can franchise this for you.' They weren't interested in

traveling, so I took the burden. We signed a contract that gave

me the rights to expand, while they stayed home in the sun.

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4. Des Plaines: The First

Arch

n April 15, 1955, I opened my first McDonald's in Des

Plaines, Illinois. I was fifty-two, and I was broke, but I

was determined. I was a fanatic for cleanliness. I’d be

out there myself with a putty knife, scraping gum off the

pavement. I wanted a place where a family could eat without

worrying about grease or rowdy teenagers. I wasn't just selling a

fifteen-cent hamburger; I was selling a standard. I began

recruiting operators—people like me, who were willing to work

the grill and scrub the floors to make a dream work.

“If you have time to lean, you have time to

clean.”

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5. The Sonneborn Strategy

he early days were a financial nightmare. I was selling

millions of burgers but making pennies in profit. Then

I met Harry Sonneborn. Harry looked at my books

and told me, 'Ray, you're not in the hamburger business. You're

in the real estate business.' He was right. We started the

Franchise Realty Corporation. We would buy or lease the land,

and the franchisee would pay us rent. This gave us the capital to

grow and the power to ensure every store followed my rules. If

they didn't keep the place clean, they didn't keep the lease.

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6. The $2.7 Million

Handshake

y 1961, the tension with the McDonald brothers was

unbearable. They were dragging their feet on every

innovation I proposed. I finally asked them what it

would take to go away. Their answer: $2.7 million in cash. It was

an astronomical sum, especially since we were still struggling for

cash flow. I was furious, but I knew I had to own the name. I

borrowed the money at a high interest rate—it cost me a fortune

in the long run—but it bought me freedom. From that day on,

the Golden Arches belonged to the McDonald's Corporation,

and we never looked back.

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7. The Gospel of QSC & V

y philosophy was simple: Quality, Service,

Cleanliness, and Value. I called it QSC & V. I was a

pest about it. I’d show up at a store at 2:00 AM to

check the trash bins. I believe in 'enlightened self-interest'—if

my suppliers and my franchisees made money, I would make

money. In 1961, we started Hamburger University in the

basement of a restaurant in Elk Grove Village. We weren't just

teaching people how to flip burgers; we were teaching them the

science of the system.

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8. Innovation and the Big

Mac

always listened to my operators. Jim Delligatti in

Pittsburgh came to me with a double-decker burger he

called the Big Mac. At first, I was skeptical—the menu was

supposed to be simple. But the customers loved it. Then there

was Lou Groen in Cincinnati, who created the Filet-O-Fish

because his Catholic customers couldn't eat meat on Fridays. We

were constantly evolving. We went public in 1965, and suddenly

the world realized that the hamburger business was a serious

industry. We began opening stores in Canada, Japan, and

Europe, proving that a good burger is a universal language.

Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc McDonald’s Founder Autobiography — page 11

I’

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9. Looking Back from the

Top

ve been called a lot of things: a visionary, a tyrant, a

genius. But at the end of the day, I’m just a man who

believed in a product and worked harder than the next

guy. I never stopped looking for ways to improve. Even after I

stepped down as CEO and bought the San Diego Padres, my

heart was always under the arches. I want to be remembered as

the man who gave the world a great meal at a price they could

afford, served in a place they could be proud of. As I always say:

'As long as you're green, you're growing. As soon as you're ripe,

you start to rot.'

***

Personal Note:

I never saw myself as a salesman of food. I was

a salesman of an idea. The idea that no matter where you are

in this country, you can walk through a pair of golden arches

and find a quality meal, a friendly face, and a clean floor.

That was my obsession. That was my life’s work.

Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc McDonald’s Founder Autobiography — page 12

Introduction: Persistence

have always believed that if you're not a risk-taker, you

should get the hell out of business. People often look at

me and see a 52-year-old overnight success. But my

'overnight' was thirty years long, and it was a very long night

indeed. This is the story of how I found my destiny in a paper

cup, a milkshake mixer, and finally, a hamburger bun. I didn't

invent the hamburger, but I took it more seriously than anyone

else ever had.

Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc McDonald’s Founder Autobiography

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