Ray Kroc, the entrepreneur and mastermind behind the global fast-food empire McDonald’s, played a vital role in transforming a small California burger joint into one of the most iconic and successful businesses and restaurants in the world. This article explores Kroc’s journey and the strategic steps he took to purchase McDonald’s from its original owners, the McDonald brothers.

Ray Kroc was born to parents Rose and Louis Kroc. Louis Kroc was a struggling real-estate salesman. Ray, at the age of fifteen, enlisted in the Red Cross and was trained to be an ambulance driver.¹ This in turn taught him to be tough and ambitious. He knew the value of putting your all into your business and of always looking for new ways to succeed. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he became a salesman and was the sole distributor of a device called the multi-Mixer.² He would sell multi-Mixers to restaurants all across America, allowing them to make multiple milkshakes at the same time. Something caught his eye when a restaurant that appeared small and not very well-known, bought eight of his multi-Mixers, and it ended up making twenty thousand milkshakes a month.³

Those statistics led him to take a trip to San Bernardino in southern California, to the small, brother-owned restaurant named Mcdonalds. When he got there, he placed a simple order expecting to wait a good twenty minutes; but he couldn’t believe his eyes when the food he had just ordered was already in his hands in a minute. Instantly, he had to know more about how this restaurant was operated and how this phenomenon was possible. He ended up speaking to the brothers, and they were more than happy to show him the incredible system that they had pioneered. They called it the “Speedee Service System.”⁴ The Speedee service system is described like this. “An emphasis on efficiency, low prices, big volume, and speedy self-service and a jettisoning of anything that would slow down the transaction, such as carhops, plates, forks, knives, glassware, dishwashers, tipping, and less popular menu items.”⁵ The food was already pre-made, so when the customer ordered from the limited menu, which included hamburgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, potato chips, pie, coffee, milk, soft drinks, and milkshakes, they already had the food ready. ⁶ Everything ran like clockwork. People would come and go in minutes, revolutionizing the food industry as we know it. Ray could not believe his eyes. They had re-invented the wheel and had a billion-dollar idea right in front of him.

He knew he had to be involved somehow. In 1951, he started visiting McDonalds frequently. Every time the product was quick, consistent, and cheap, a combo that was not common at that time. Every time you went to a diner, you ran the risk of food poisoning and poor service, because restaurants were not held to the health standards they are today. The fact that McDonalds was so much better than every diner in the world on the scale of quickness and consistency was unimaginable. Slowly they started gaining traction in the San Bernardino area, and the brothers saw a massive increase in sales and profits. Ray knew this was going to be the “next best thing” in the food industry. The ability to eliminate waitresses and waiters from the restaurant industry was game-changing, and he knew it. When you take out a major employee group, you don’t have to pay so many employees, making your restaurant even more profitable than it already was.⁷

Normally, when you are more than halfway through your career you rarely think about changing the career you have for something else. But not Ray Kroc. He was always an overachiever and put his all into everything he did. He knew that he did not want to sell multi-Mixers forever. He was stuck in a normal lackluster American life with a wife who didn’t care much for him. He didn’t feel like his life was the life he wanted. So, when he found that Mcdonalds, he knew he could make it a household name across all of America. He came up with a great plan to take over this whole restaurant and expand it into the largest fast-food chain of all time.⁸

The only thing that was standing in his way were the people who had actually come up with this game-changing idea and had built Mcdonalds from the ground up. The Mcdonald brothers, Richard and Mac Mcdonald, had no real big intentions for the restaurant and just wanted to live simple and comfortable lives as small business owners. That mentality was completely contradictory to Ray Kroc’s, which made them not the best of partners to go into business with. Ray wanted to conquer the world, but the brothers just wanted to live above-average days and work at that Mcdonalds for the rest of their mundane lives. Ray could not take action, yet he knew he needed to plan his takeover for many years, until it was the perfect time to strike and take what he desired most in his life, to be the complete and sole owner of Mcdonalds and play out the vision he had for the restaurant. He kept working at it slowly, building a tighter connection with the owners and gaining their trust day by day. He didn’t want to sell multi-Mixers anymore. He had found his calling at the doors of Mcdonalds.⁹

He opened his very own franchise in 1955, in Des Plaines, Illinois. With his very own franchise, he became a huge and crucial part of the Mcdonalds company and brand.¹⁰ He took very good care of his franchise and made sure everything was run to perfection. He was known to be a massive control freak and would fire employees for the smallest things they did wrong, like wear the wrong hat to work or drink the wrong cocktail when going out to a bar after work.¹¹ But he did not want to stop there. He knew he was destined for bigger things than just being a franchise owner. So, he waited many years to put his plan into action and take the helm of the ship for himself.

Mcdonalds started becoming increasingly popular and sales were through the roof. People couldn’t get enough of the standard American burger. Slowly the brothers Dick and Mac started catching on to the ludicrous ambition of Ray and the ideas he had in his head. They put the clues together and realized Ray didn’t want the brothers to stand in his way of becoming the full owner. So, they slowly started backing away and distancing themselves from Ray. As soon as Ray caught on, he knew this was his time to make his mark and prey on the brothers and their simple minds. So, in 1961, just six years after opening his first franchise, he scheduled a meeting with the brothers.¹²

He walked into Dick and Mac’s office at the original Mcdonalds in San Bernadino, California the year was 1961. From the moment he stepped foot in the office there was clearly tension between the brothers and Ray. The brothers were sick of the way Ray saw them as a roadblock in his story to greatness. Ray was certain he needed the brothers to leave the company in order to have total control of the company and make the billions it could potentially make. Ray started the meeting by thanking them for starting his company for him, and he offered them a deal they could not refuse: two point seven million dollars in exchange for full ownership of Mcdonalds. By then, sales had reached a whopping 37 million in sales from 228 stores nationwide.¹³ In today’s world, that offer would be worth around twenty-five million dollars, which seems like a lot, but when you consider the value of one hundred ninety-seven billion dollars, that was one of the worst deals of all time. Then again, the brothers, not being able to see the future, took the deal and were able to live comfortable and happy days for the rest of their lives. They were still allowed to run the original location, which they happily did until it closed down in 1968. At this time, Ray was on top of the world. He leaped out of the meeting room and knew his life was about to change drastically.

With no one in his way, he could finally execute the plan he had always wanted and envisioned for the company. The brothers did not leave their company silently but spoke out about the direction Ray was taking the restaurant and how they did not appreciate the change in the quality of the food after they gave up ownership. Ray had a very business-oriented mentality while the brothers had more care for the product that they gave to the hungry people who walked through their doors. This deal would mark the start of the Ray Kroc empire and the expansion and domination of Mcdonalds.¹⁴

Ray Kroc became one of the most successful restaurant owners of all time. He expanded McDonald’s all over the world in an amazingly short amount of time. People thought he was crazy and that he would fail. But like a true conqueror, he did not listen to anyone’s opinion of him or his ideas, and he followed his heart and genius mind. “Kroc did not invent McDonald’s, but he transformed and developed it into a leading institution that has revolutionized the food service industry and altered traditional eating habits throughout the world.”¹⁵. By the time Ray Kroc passed away, he had achieved over seven thousand five hundred restaurants all over the world.¹⁶ Ray Kroc was a first of his kind in the amount of ambition and drive he had in order to be successful in the restaurant world. There had only been a handful of people like this, but he was the first in the fast-food industry. He wasn’t the nicest man and he had to step on a lot of toes in order to rise to the top, but he had the heart of a lion. His third wife later ended up donating a lot of Ray Kroc’s fortune after he passed away. She donated millions of dollars to many different great causes like the Salvation Army, as well as helping people with substance abuse problems.¹⁷ This, in turn, helped a lot of people who were not as fortunate as Ray Kroc was. ¹⁸ In the end, the story of Ray Kroc and his ambition is of great interest. Not only did he change the world with the expansion of Mcdonalds, but his fortune helped a lot of people when his wife, who inherited the money, donated most of it.