Fast Food Nation

The Founding Fathers

Carl N. Karcher’s father once told him “the harder you work the luckier you will become”.  Today Carl Karcher is one of the founding fathers of the fast food industry as well as the McDonalds brothers, Keith Cramer, William Rosenberg and Mathew Burns.  At the age of twenty Carl decided to leave his family farm in northern Ohio and move to Anaheim, California to work for his uncle.    In the 1940, California was thriving with automobiles and drive-in restaurants which are known as “car hops”.  Carl first open a hot dog stand, moving on to the Carl’s drive-thru Barbeque and eventually in 1997 bought Hardee’s Hamburger.   The fast food war was becoming fierce in California, becoming the birth place of the Jack in the Box, McDonalds, Taco Bell and Carl’s Jr. Today Hundreds of millions of people buy fast food every day unaware of the founding fathers and how these fast food chains came into existence.

 Speeder Service

Richard and Maurice McDonalds left New Hampshire for southern California after the start of the depression with hopes to find jobs in Hollywood. They opened the McDonalds Brothers Burger Bar Drive-in located in San Bernardino, California.   By the late 1940 they had grew tired of searching for carhop locations, replacing dishes and glassware as well as price of short order cooks.  In 1948, the closed all their locations installed larger grills and opened three months later with a new method of serving food.  They had gotten rid of everything that was to be eaten with a fork or spoon and replaced them with paper cup, bags and plates.  The food preparation would be divided up so that one person only had to learn one job.  The McDonalds brother helped revolutionizes the fast food industry with speedy service and the golden arches where formed.

Glen W. Bell Jr visited the McDonalds in San Bernardino and decided to copy the assembly line creating a chain later called Taco Bell.  Keith Cramer also heard about the McDonalds brothers’ restaurant and flew to California from Florida.  After seeing the success of the new assembly line approach he flew back home and with his father- in- law opened the first Insta Burger King in 1953. Dave Thomas started working in restaurants at the age of 15, dropped out of high school, served as a bus boy and cook, eventually opening the first Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers in Columbus, Ohio.  Unfortunately, Thomas Monaghan bought a pizzeria in Ypsilanti, Michigan and eventually decided to sell and accepted a used Volkswagen for his share of the business later known a Domino’s.