McDonalds' Success during the 1970s

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McDonald’s, a franchise known world-wide started out as a little burger stand in San Bernardino, California. It was started by brothers Mac and Dick McDonald, and Ray Kroc visited their restaurant in 1954. A year later he founded the McDonald’s Corporation, which was based on the successful burger stand run by the McDonald brothers. Three years after the McDonald’s franchise was founded, it had sold its 100 millionth hamburger. What factors led to McDonalds’ national and international success during the 1970s? McDonalds' national and international success in the 1970s was caused by its menu options, the cleanliness, and its spread around the world.
McDonalds’ success was achieved through its menu options due to the cheap prices, good taste, and its multiple choices. Ray Kroc, the founder of the McDonald’s franchise, employed teenagers to make the prices very low. These low prices allowed working class families to feed their children with restaurant food , which was not very typical at the time. Because most people could afford these meals, many went to McDonald’s for a meal. Even though these prices were not very high, McDonald’s still earned a lot of money because of the high concentration of people that dined there. An immigrant from Moscow, going to Boston, had his first encounter with McDonald’s in 1981. One day he went out for lunch during work. He passed many restaurants, but he stopped at a restaurant that “was all red and yellow, and very brightly lit. The prices were just right for [his] wallet.” As an immigrant he does not have a lot of money, so if even he has enough money, almost everyone has the amount of money needed to buy a burger from McDonald’s. Every person that came to McDonald’s since it was founded menti...

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... Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonalds. Contemperary Books, 1977.
Pace, Eric. "Ray A. Kroc Dies at 81; Built McDonald's Chain." New York Times, January 15, 1984.

Secondary Sources:
Boym, Constantin. "My McDonalds." JSTOR. 2001. Accessed March 22, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2001.1.1.6.
"History of McDonald's Restaurants :: AboutMcDonalds.com." History of McDonald's Restaurants :: AboutMcDonalds.com. Accessed April 15, 2014. http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/mcdonalds_history_timeline.html
McDonald's. "Our History." :: McDonalds.com. Accessed March 25, 2014. http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/our_story/our_history.html.
O’Brien, Keith. "How McDonald’s Came Back Bigger Than Ever." Edited by Dean Robinson. New York Times, May 4, 2012.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

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