A movie called “The Founder” will hit the silver screen in January. It’s a film portraying Michael Keaton starring as Ray Kroc, the founder of Mickey D’s – McDonald’s. It takes us back to 1955 when Kroc went in business with the original McDonald brothers and grew the franchise to its current state as the world’s second largest private employer (behind Wal-Mart). Today, McDonald’s serves some 68 million customers around the world every day. Boomers made all this happen.
In the 1950’s and into the early 60’s, a typical hamburger sold at a diner or drive in for a quarter. A cheeseburger was an extra nickel, but along came McDonald’s and a few other regional chains to offer burgers for 15-cents apiece. Those 15-cent burgers sustained me and three of my close buddies in Myrtle Beach in a final fling before college back in 1962.
Our moms had reluctantly relented and approved our beach trip without chaperones. It helped that they knew full well that if any one of us drank as many as three beers we would get drunk, be sick, throw up all night and the next day and then swear off booze for 2 months. There were no such things as drugs back then, at least that we were aware of. Three of us smoked, and that was our major vice. So we were allowed to go with the only stipulation was that we paid for the trip ourselves.
I didn’t have a job that summer, but managed to catch on with a bunch of carney’s at the West Virginia State Fair. I worked from 9 to 9, seven days in a row hustling candied apples and cotton candy and cleared $75. That’s how much beach money I would have.
Miraculously, we found an upstairs apartment aptly called Wee Scot that rented for $75 a week. They really wanted families only, but we convinced them of our innocence and they agreed to rent us the cottage. My share of the rent was $18.75. It cost us $10 each in gas money, round trip, so I was sitting at less than $50 for meals and entertainment for 7 days. On one of the side streets just north of Myrtle Beach proper was a McDonald’s with 15 cent hamburgers, and we ate them most every lunch and dinner. One night we splurged and went out to a seafood restaurant. I think I blew $6 for a seafood platter and a sweet tea, but mostly we survived on those wafer-thin slivers of beef patties from McDonalds. A few years later in college, a group of my suite mates and I converged each Sunday afternoon on a local 15-cent burger joint where we easily polished off 4 or 5 apiece.
So if it wasn’t for Baby Boomers and the millions of 15 cent burgers we consumed, McDonald’s would have never got off the ground.
And then Boomers had children, who worshiped at the Golden Arches, allowing Ronald McDonald to become the second most recognizable face the world, next to Santa Claus.
Over the years, Ray Kroc and company hammered us with great slogans like these:
“Look for the Golden Arches.”
“Really good. And still only 15 cents.”
“You deserve a break today.”
“Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.”
“Did somebody say McDonald’s?”
“We love to see you smile.”
“I’m lovin’ it.”
So, Ray, you owe us one, and when all we Boomers join you in the great burger joint in the sky, we’ll each expect a couple 15-cent burgers, a Coke and an order of fries. Make that super-size.