By: Ian Larson

McDonald’s has become the largest fast food chain in the world through all of its many successes and challenges.

According to Britannica, the first ever McDonald’s drive-in restaurant was opened in San Bernardino, California in 1940 by Maurice McDonald and Richard McDonald, who were brothers. Then, in 1948 they changed the idea of the restaurant to have the purpose of selling lots of food for cheap.

They later made 10 more restaurants because of the success they had. They also created a system that they called the Speedee Service System, which had an area for self service.

In 1961, a milkshake mixing machine distributor, Ray Kroc, decided to buy out the McDonalds because he saw that the idea for the restaurant was good and could be improved on.

Ray Kroc began standardizing McDonald’s restaurants so that they could be run the same way. The McDonald’s company had many changes over the next few years.

The McDonald’s mascot that we know and love today, Ronald McDonald was introduced in 1963. Ronald McDonald was a clown, which was a slightly controversial decision because of people being scared of clowns and this being marketed to kids.

In 1968, the iconic Big Mac was added to the menu all over the world. The Big Mac later became McDonald’s second highest selling choice on the menu, only behind french fries.

McDonald’s introduced the drive-through window to their restaurants starting in a McDonald’s in Arizona in 1975, which was a great success for the company and would become a staple of McDonald’s restaurants in the US and Canada.

McDonald’s was growing so fast in the 1990s that it quickly became the most popular family restaurant because of how cheap the food was and the fun environment for people of all ages.

McDonald’s did face some challenges and criticism. Many people associated McDonald’s with the increase in obesity around the world. McDonald’s tried to counteract this by creating vegan burgers called McVegan and McPlant.

After all of this, McDonald’s is still expand to this day and isn’t showing any sign of stopping soon.