McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation

Company type	Public (NYSE: MCD)
Industry	Restaurants
Founded	May 15, 1940 in San Bernardino, California
Headquarters	Oak Brook, Illinois, United States
Key people	Dick and Mac McDonald, Founders Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's Corporation Jim Skinner, CEO Michael J. Roberts, President/COO Ronald McDonald, Corporate Mascot
Products	Fast food, including Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, Chicken McNuggets, french fries, and sundaes
Revenue	$20.460 Billion USD (2005)
Operating income	9,371,000,000 United States dollar (2022)
Net income	$2.602 Billion USD (2005)
Total assets	52,626,800,000 United States dollar (2020)
Number of employees	447,000 (2005)
Website	www.mcdonalds.com

McDonald's Sekime national route store (Osaka, Japan)

McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is the world's largest chain of fast-food restaurants.

The company began in 1940 with a restaurant opened by siblings Dick and Mac McDonald, but it was their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 that established the principles of the fast-food restaurant. However, the company today dates its "founding" to the opening of CEO Ray Kroc's first franchised restaurant, the company's ninth, in 1955.

Corporate overview

McDonald's restaurants are found in 119 countries and territories around the world, by the company's reckoning. They claim to serve nearly 50 million customers each day.

In addition, the company operates other restaurant brands, such as Aroma Café, Boston Market and Chipotle Mexican Grill, and has a minority stake in Pret a Manger. Until December 2003 it also owned Donatos Pizza. It also has a subsidiary, Redbox, which started in 2003 as 18-foot wide automated convenience stores, but as of 2005 has focused on DVD rental machines.

Revenues for 2004 were US$19.1 billion, with net income at $2.75 billion.

Most standalone McDonald's restaurants offer both counter and drive-through service, with indoor and sometimes outdoor seating. Drive-Thru, Auto-Mac, or McDrive as it is known in many countries, often has separate stations for placing, paying for, and picking up orders, though the latter two steps are frequently combined. In some countries "McDrive" locations near highways offer no counter service or seating. In contrast, locations in high-density city neighborhoods often omit drive-through service. There are also a few locations, located mostly in downtown districts, that offer Walk-Thru service in place of Drive-Thru.

Specially themed restaurants also exist, such as "Rock-and-Roll McDonald's" 1950s themed restaurants. Some McDonald's in suburban areas and certain cities feature large indoor or outdoor playgrounds, called "McDonald's PlayPlace" or "Playland". These were primarily created in the 1970s and 1980s in the USA, but later internationally.

The McDonald's Corporation's business model is slightly different from that of most other fast-food chains. In addition to ordinary franchise fees, supplies, and percentage of sales, McDonald's also collects rent, partially linked to sales. As a condition of the franchise agreement, the Corporation owns the properties on which most McDonald's franchises are located. The UK the business model is different, in that fewer than 30% of restaurants are franchised, with the majority under the ownership of the company.

McDonald's trains its franchisees and others at Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Illinois.

According to Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (2001), nearly one in eight workers in the US have at some time been employed by McDonald's. The book also states that McDonald's is the largest private operator of playgrounds in the U.S., as well as the single largest purchaser of beef, pork, potatoes, and apples.

History

Fourth McDonald's restaurant in Downey, California, at the corner of Lakewood and Florence. It is the oldest McDonald's restaurant still in operation.

File:Me0039.jpg '50s-themed McDonald's sign in Bangor, Maine

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McDonald's in Sanya, Hainan (China). This one is a soft drink/ice cream stand.

File:McDonald's Zamboanga.jpg First McDonald's restaurant in Zamboanga City, Philippines opened last February 28, 2005

File:Hxc alexallied mcds.jpg McDonald's in a Malaysian mall

McDonald's in Saint Petersburg, Russia

File:Uberlândia-MG 14.jpg McDonald's in Brazil, city of Uberlândia, state of Minas Gerais

• 1937: Brothers Dick and Mac McDonald open a hot dog stand called the Airdome in Arcadia, California.
• 1940: The brothers move the Airdome building to San Bernardino, California, where they open the McDonald's restaurant on Route 66 on May 15. Its menu consists of 25 items, mostly barbecue. The first McDonald's hamburger cost $0.15. As is common at the time, they employ around 20 carhops. It became a popular and highly profitable teen hangout.
• 1948: After noting that almost all of their profits came from hamburgers, the brothers close down the restaurant for several months to implement their innovative "Speedee Service System", a streamlined assembly line for hamburgers. The carhops are fired, and when the restaurant reopens it sells only hamburgers, milkshakes, and french fries. At 15 cents, the burgers are about half as expensive as at standard diners, and they are served immediately. The restaurant is extremely successful, and its fame spreads by word of mouth.
• 1953: The McDonald brothers begin to franchise their restaurant, with Neil Fox as the first franchisee. The second McDonald's opens in Phoenix, Arizona. It is the first to feature the Golden Arches design; later in the year the original restaurant is rebuilt in this style.
• 1953: Fourth McDonald's restaurant opens, in Downey, California at the corner of Lakewood and Florence Avenue, and is the oldest McDonald's restaurant still in operation.
• 1954: Entrepreneur and milkshake-mixer salesman Ray Kroc becomes fascinated by the McDonald's restaurant during a sales visit, when he learns of its extraordinary capacity and popularity. (Others who had visited the restaurant and come away inspired were James McLamore, founder of Burger King, and Glen Bell, founder of Taco Bell.) After seeing the restaurant in operation, Kroc approaches the McDonald brothers, who have already begun franchising, with a proposition to let him franchise McDonald's restaurants outside the company's homebase of California and Arizona, with himself as the first franchisee. Kroc works hard to sell McDonald's. He even attempts to prevail on his wartime acquaintance with Walt Disney, in the failed hope of opening a McDonald's at the soon-to-be-opened Disneyland.
• 1955: Ray Kroc founds "McDonald's Systems, Inc." on March 2, as a legal structure for his planned franchises. Kroc opens the ninth McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, in suburban Chicago on April 15. The first day's revenues are $366.12. The company's literature usually refers to this date as the "beginning" of the company, then already 15 years old, writing the McDonald brothers out of its history in favor of "Founder" Kroc. The company still refers to this restaurant as "McDonald's #1".
• 1955: Ray Kroc hires Harry J. Sonneborn as the Chief Financial Officer for McDonald's. Harry Sonneborn remained a key influence in the McDonald's corporation till his resignation in 1967.
• 1960: Kroc's company is renamed "McDonald's Corporation".
• 1961: The McDonald brothers agree to sell Kroc business rights to their operation for $2.7 million, a sum that Kroc borrows from a number of investors, including Princeton University; Kroc considers the sum extreme, and it strains his relationship with the brothers. The agreement allows the brothers to keep their original restaurant, but in an oversight they fail to retain the right to remain a McDonald's franchise. Renamed "The Big M", Kroc drives it out of business by opening a McDonald's just one block north; he attended the opening. Had the brothers maintained their original agreement, which granted them 0.5% of the chain's annual revenues, they or their heirs would have been collecting in excess of $100 million per year today.
• 1963: One of Kroc's marketing insights is his decision to market McDonald's hamburgers to families and children. Washington, D.C. franchisees John Gibson and Oscar Goldstein (Gee Gee Distributing Corporation) sponsor a children's show on WRC-TV called Bozo the Clown, a franchised character played in Washington, D.C. by Willard Scott from 1959 until 1962. After the show was cancelled, Goldstein hires Scott to portray McDonald's new mascot "Ronald McDonald" in the first three television advertisements featuring the character. The character eventually spreads to the rest of the country via an advertising campaign, although Scott is replaced and his version of the original costume is revised. Years later, an entire cast of McDonaldland characters is developed.
• 1963: The Filet-O-Fish is introduced in Cincinnati, Ohio, in a restaurant located in a neighborhood dominated by Roman Catholics who practiced abstinence (the avoidance of meat) on Fridays. It is the first new addition to the original menu, and goes national the following year, with fish supplied by Gorton's of Gloucester.
• 1967: The first McDonald's restaurant outside the United States opens in Richmond, British Columbia.
• 1967: The chain's current stand-alone restaurant design, with mansard roof and indoor seating, is introduced.
• 1968: The Big Mac (similar to the Big Boy hamburger), the brainchild of Jim Delligatti, one of Ray Kroc's earliest franchisees, who by the late 1960s operated a dozen stores in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is first introduced in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania market in 1967, before going system/nationwide a year later, following its great local success. The Hot Apple Pie is also introduced this year.
• 1970: Having changed hands in 1968, the original "Big M" restaurant closes. It is demolished two years later, with only part of the sign remaining; this has since been restored.
• 1971: The first Asian McDonald's opens in July in Japan, in Tokyo's Ginza district.
• 1971: On August 21, the first European McDonald's outlet opens, in Zaandam (near Amsterdam) in the Netherlands. The franchisee is Ahold.
• 1971: The first McDonald's in Germany (Munich) opens in December. It is the first McDonald's to sell alcohol, as it offers beer. Other European countries follow in the early 1970s.
• 1971: The first Australian McDonald's opens in the Sydney suburb of Yagoona in December.
• 1973: The Quarter Pounder is introduced.
• 1974: On October 12, the first McDonald's in the United Kingdom opens in Woolwich, southeast London. It is the company's 3000th restaurant.
• 1975: Drive-Thru is introduced in January in Sierra Vista, Arizona. It was later known as "McDrive" in some countries.
• 1979: The Happy Meal is introduced in the U.S.
• 1979: The first McDonald's in France opens, in Strasbourg.
• 1980: McDonald's introduces the McChicken sandwich, its first poultry item. It flops, and is removed from the menu, but is later reintroduced after Chicken McNuggets prove successful.
• 1983: McDonald's introduces the Chicken McNugget, a then-novel bite-size piece of mixed dark and white meat; it quickly becomes a best-seller.
• 1984: On July 18, James Oliver Huberty rakes a McDonald's restaurant with gunfire, killing 21 people in San Ysidro, San Diego, California, in the McDonald's massacre.
• 1984: The company is a main sponsor of the 1984 Summer Olympics. Its U.S. restaurants lose money on the game "When America Wins, You Win" after the Soviet bloc nations boycott the Games, leading to a high number of medals won by the U.S. (This was later parodied in an episode of The Simpsons, with Krusty the Klown's Krustyburger chain suffering a similar fate)
• 1988: McDonald's opens its first restaurant in a communist country, in Győr, Hungary. Belgrade, Yugoslavia follows in the same year.
• 1989: In June the first store in Tasmania, Australia opens in Moonah. It holds the record for the most sales against profit/loss in McDonald's Australia History. Exact figures unknown.
• 1990: On January 31, the first Soviet McDonald's opens, in Moscow. At the time it is the largest McDonald's in the world (it is still Europe's biggest). For political reasons, McDonald's Canada is responsible for this opening, with little input from the U.S. parent company; a wall display within the restaurant shows the Canadian and Soviet flags. To overcome Soviet supply problems, the company creates its own supply chain, including farms, within the USSR. Unlike other foreign investments, the restaurant accepts rubles, not dollars, and is extremely popular, with waiting lines of several hours common in its early days.
• 1992: The first McDonald's opens in Africa, in Casablanca, Morocco.
• 1992: Stella Liebeck receives third-degree burns from coffee purchased at a McDonald's drive-through. She sued in what became known as the McDonald's coffee case.
• 1992: Freeman MacNeil, Darren Muise, and Derek Wood, employees of the McDonald's in Sydney River, Nova Scotia, break into the restaurant after closing, planning to rob the place. They shoot, stab, and beat three employees to death and leave a fourth permanently disabled.
• 1992: On April 23, the world's largest McDonald's opens in Beijing, China (over 700 seats). Along with adjacent buildings, it is later demolished.
• 1993: On a sunny afternoon, August 10, 1993, Dion Terres walks into a Kenosha, Wisconsin McDonald's restaurant at 75th Street and Pershing Blvd and fires three random shots from a .44 Magnum revolver, killing two customers and wounding a third, before taking his own life.
• Circa 1995: McDonald's receives complaints from franchisees that too many franchises are being granted, leading to competition among franchisees. McDonald's starts conducting market impact studies before granting further franchises.
• 1996: Following the end of apartheid, the first McDonald's in South Africa opens.
• 1996: First McDonald's opens in Belarus, marking the chain's 100th country. At the opening ceremony, the Belarusian militia are accused of brutality toward members of the public hoping to enter the restaurant in Minsk.
• 1996: The first Indian McDonald's opens.
• 1997: McDonald's wins the "McLibel" case, in what many consider to be a Pyrrhic victory in terms of the company's image. Only about half of the counts are in McDonald's favour despite enormous legal resources deployed against self-representing defendants.
• 1998: First McDonald's in Pakistan opens in Lahore. A week later one opens in Karachi.
• 1999: French leftist activist José Bové and others gain worldwide attention when they destroy a half-built McDonald's franchise in Millau (Aveyron). The incident follows a European Union ban on American meat imports, on the grounds that they use hormone treatments; in response the U.S. had increased import duties on French Roquefort cheese and other European Union products. Bové was sentenced to three months in prison for his role in the incident.
• 2000: Eric Schlosser publishes Fast Food Nation, a book critical of fast food in general and McDonald's in particular.
• 2000: The company opens its 1000th British store, inside the Millennium Dome.
• 2001: The FBI reports that employees of Simon Worldwide, a company hired by McDonald's to provide promotion marketing services for Happy Meals and the 'Millionaire'/'Monopoly' contest, stole winning game pieces worth more than $20 million.
• 2002: A survey in Restaurants and Institutions magazine ranks McDonald's 15th in food quality among hamburger chains, highlighting the company's failure to enforce standards across its franchise network.
• 2002: McDonald's posts its first quarterly loss ($344m), for the last quarter. It responds to the stiff competition from other fast-food restaurants, offering higher quality burgers and more variety, by attempting to move more upmarket by expanding its menu and refitting restaurants. It announces it is withdrawing from three countries (including Bolivia) and closing 175 underperforming restaurants.
• 2003: McDonald's starts a global marketing campaign which promotes a new healthier and higher-quality image. The campaign was labeled "i'm lovin' it™" and began simultaneously in more than 100 countries around the world.
• 2003: According to Technomic, a market research firm, McDonald's' share of the U.S. market has fallen three percentage points in five years and is now at 15.2%. [1]
• 2003: The firm reports a $126m loss for the fourth quarter [2].
• 2004: Morgan Spurlock directs and stars in Super Size Me documentary film in which the protagonist eats nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days to the detriment of his health.
• 2005: McDonald's experiments with call centers for drive-through orders. The center, located in Fargo, North Dakota takes orders from more than a dozen stores in Oregon and Washington. The experiment is in part motivated by labor costs, since the minimum wage in North Dakota is over 40% lower than that in Oregon or Washington.
• 2005: Owing in part to competitive pressure, McDonald's Australia begins "Made for you" policy in which the food is cooked after the customer orders (as opposed to the firm's normal procedure since 1948, in which the food is cooked then sold as needed). It should become standard practice in all Australian restaurants by 2007. Some restaurants in New Zealand also follow suit. The practice had earlier been tested, and abandoned, in the U.S.
• 2005: McDonald's in Singapore began their McDelivery service: customers place orders their food over the phone, and it is delivered to wherever they are. The service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• 2005: McDonald's opens a Wi-Fi service in select restaurants with Nintendo for Nintendo DS.
• 2006: McDonald's announces that it will include nutritional information on the packaging for all products beginning in March[3] and that its upcoming menu changes will emphasize chicken, salads, and other "fresh foods" rather than hamburgers[4].

Criticisms

McDonald's faces varying problems. Some of these are unique to franchising. As one of the world's largest and best recognized franchise systems, it must endeavour to successfully deal with matters of internal cohesion between the interests of its franchisees and that of the franchisor. At the same time, its global reach and broadly standard product line and level of service have led to McDonald's becoming the target of anti-globalization protests, and as the highest-profile fast food company, it is often blamed for obesity and excessive packaging waste. Its moves to protect its reputation and trademarks have at times been seen as heavy-handed.

As the world's largest restaurant chain, McDonald's also finds itself a target for external criticism. Even though its foreign franchise locations are usually locally owned and use locally-produced foods, the company is seen as a symbol of American domination of economic resources. Urban legends about the company and its food are plentiful and it is often the target of unusual lawsuits.

McDonald's has been the target of criticism for allegations of exploitation of entry-level workers, use of sweatshop labor to produce "happy meal" toys, ecological damage caused by agricultural production and industrial processing of its products, selling unhealthy food, production of packaging waste, exploitative advertising (especially targeted at children, minorities, and low-income people), and contributing to suffering and exploitation of livestock. McDonald's' historic tendency towards promoting high-calorie foods such as French fries has earned it the nickname "the starchy arches".

Legal cases

In the high profile McLibel Trial, McDonald's took two anti-McDonald's campaigners, Helen Steel and Dave Morris, to court for a trial lasting two and a half years—the longest in English legal history and part of a 20-year battle—after the pair distributed leaflets critical of the company in London's streets. McDonald's won the case in the U.K. High Court, and were awarded £60,000 damages, which later was reduced to £40,000 by the Court of Appeal. Steel and Morris then made a separate but related claim against the U.K. Government in the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that the lack of access to legal aid and the heavy burden of proof that lay with them to prove their claims (rather than McDonald's, the claimants, having to prove that the claims were false) under U.K. libel law breached the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression. The ECHR ruled against the U.K. Government, which subsequently introduced legislation to change the libel laws to remedy the defects highlighted by the ECHR judgment. The libel charge and fine were overturned in an appeals case - see McLibel case. In March, 2006, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group of South Florida farmworkers, began a campaign demanding better wages for the people who pick the tomatoes used by the fast-food company.

McDonald's has also been criticized for its approach to preserving its image and copyrights. It has threatened many foodservice businesses with legal action unless they drop the Mc or Mac from their trading name. In one noteworthy case, McDonald's sued a Scottish café owner called McDonald, even though the business in question dated back over a century. Other legal battles include:

• Pursuing a 26-year legal action against an Illinois restaurant owned by a man named Ronald McDonald (opened in 1956).
• In 1994, McDonald's successfully forced Elizabeth McCaughey of the San Francisco Bay Area to change the trading name of her coffeeshop McCoffee, which had operated under that name for 17 years.
• In 1994, McDonald's sued a restaurant in Kingston, Jamaica, because of trademark infringement, although it had opened in 1971, before McDonald's entered the Jamaican market.
• In 1996, McDonald's lost a legal battle at the Danish Supreme Court to force Allan Pedersen, a mincemeat sandwich vendor, to drop his shop name McAllan.
• In 1996, McDonald's forced Scottish sandwich shop owner Mary Blair of Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire to drop McMunchies as her trading name.
• In 2001, McDonald's lost a nine-year legal action against Frank Yuen of McChina Wok Away, Chinese takeway outlets in various part of the UK.

In South Africa, McDonald's had to battle against the country's trademark laws, which stated that a registered trademark had to be used within a certain period of time. This resulted in a local company announcing plans to launch its own fast-food chain using the McDonald's name, although the South African High Court eventually ruled in McDonald's favor.

In July 2001, McDonald's was fined £12,400 by British magistrates for illegally employing and over-working child labor in one of its London restaurants. This is thought to be one of the largest fines imposed on a company for breaking laws relating to child working conditions.

Also in 2001, Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation included scathing criticism of McDonald's' business practices. Among the critiques are allegations that McDonald's (along with other companies within the fast-food industry) uses its political influence to increase their own profits at the expense of people's health and the social conditions of its workers. While the book does mention other fast-food chains, it focuses primarily on McDonald's.

In 2003, a ruling by the UK Advertising Standards Authority determined that the corporation had acted in breach of the codes of practice in describing how its french fries were prepared. A McDonald's print ad stated that "after selecting certain potatoes" "we peel them, slice them, fry them and that's it." It showed a picture of a potato in a McDonald's fries box. In fact the product was sliced, pre-fried, sometimes had dextrose added, was then frozen, shipped, and re-fried and then had salt added.

In June 2004, the UK's Private Eye reported that McDonald's was handing out meal vouchers, balloons, and toys to children in pediatric wards. This was especially controversial as the report was made within weeks of a British Government report stating that the present generation may be the first to die before their parents due to spiraling obesity in the British population.

Also in 2004, Morgan Spurlock's documentary film Super Size Me produced negative publicity for McDonald's, with allegations that McDonald's food was contributing heavily to the [5] epidemic of obesity in American society, and failing to provide nutritional information about its food for its customers. For 30 days Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's (supersizing whenever asked) and by the end of the month Spurlock reported mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and had gained 24.5 pounds (11.11 kg). Subsequent to the showing of the film at the Sundance Film Festival, but before its cinematic release, McDonald's phased out its Supersize meal option and began offering several healthier menu items, though no link to the film was cited in this decision. They also began a practice of putting all nutritional information for all menu items in light grey small print on the reverse of their tray liners. Several other people later similarly ate only at McDonald's for a month, but by choosing menu items more judiciously (Spurlock ate everything on the menu at least once, always accepted upsizing requests of McDonald's employees, and continued to eat after he was full) and exercising frequently, showed no ill effects. One woman was even able to lose weight, claiming that the transparency of nutritional information made it easy to control daily caloric intake.

The company has progressively introduced a line of salads and vegetarian oriented items in recent years, with the result that the menu is probably now among the most varied in existence for franchised convenience restaurants of McDonald's type. However, a large amount of anecdotal evidence exists which suggests that hygeine standards with regards to food preparation can be inconsistently applied by individual McDonald's restaurants, despite the universal policy being strict.

Global impact

Countries with McDonald's stores

Some observers have suggested that many of McDonald's innovations have become commonplace and are no longer seen as such, and that the company should be given credit for increasing the standard of service in markets it enters. A group of anthropologists in a study entitled Golden Arches East (Stanford University Press, 1998, edited by James L. Watson) looked at the impact McDonald's had had on East Asia, and Hong Kong in particular. Among the findings were that McDonald's had solved the problem of losing face for many customers (who might be embarrassed when someone else ordered a more expensive item in a restaurant; as the food at McDonald's is all similarly priced, this ceased to be an issue). McDonald's have to a large extent (within the overarching American context) shown an unusual level of desire to cater to varying cultural requirements. (The Filet-O-Fish being introduced to cater to Catholic abstinence is one example of this) However, the company at one point also became involved in controversy when it was revealed that french fries were cooked in non-kosher beef tallow, which greatly upset Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu customers, to whom it had been claimed that the fries were in fact kosher.

When it opened in Hong Kong in 1975, McDonald's was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same of other restaurants and institutions. By popularizing the idea of a quick restaurant meal, the study suggests, McDonald's led to the easing or elimination of various taboos, such as that on eating while walking in Japan. In most cases, McDonald's quickly became accepted, and was no longer seen as a foreign institution.

When environmentally damaging packaging and waste produced by the company's restaurants became a public concern, McDonald's started a joint project with Friends of the Earth to eliminate the use of polystyrene containers and to reduce the amount of waste produced. Karen Brum eats cheeseburgers at mcdonalds everyday and therefore is nothing more than a fat stupid brum.

Emblem of globalization

McDonald's has become emblematic of globalization, sometimes referred as the "Mcdonaldization" of society. The Economist magazine uses the "Big Mac index" (the price of a Big Mac) as an informal measure of purchasing power parity among world currencies. Thomas Friedman suggested that no countries with McDonald's had gone to war with each other. His theory ("Golden Arches" theory) seemed to have been disproved when NATO bombed Serbia in 1999, although it was pointed out in The Economist that NATO itself has no McDonald's. McDonald's remains a target of anti-globalization protesters worldwide.

Restaurants

The first McDonald's was not a restaurant at all, but a walk-up hamburger stand. The company's early franchises were built to a standard pattern that did not offer seating; this was in part to prevent loitering. However, the potential of sit-down restaurants was clear from the beginning, and the company switched to a new standard design for sit-down restaurants in 1967, upon which current standalone restaurants are still based. The company introduced the Drive-Thru in 1975, following the lead of competitor Wendy's, rapidly adding it to existing restaurants wherever this was feasible.

A McDonald's restaurant at Forum the Shopping Mall, Orchard Road, Singapore

However useful the standard design may have been in popularizing McDonald's and making the company's restaurants instantly recognizable, it is not always possible, or appropriate, for all restaurant locations. McDonald's has often faced organized campaigns claiming it would threaten its surroundings, particularly in historic locations. Possibly in an effort for European nations to become more accepting of the McDonald's concept, the second McDonald's in Italy, opened 1986 near the Spanish Steps in Rome, is widely heralded as the most luxurious McDonald's restaurant. It features indoor fountains, marble walls and floors. Other restaurants in similarly sensitive settings have muted décor and blend into existing architecture.

McCafé

The McCafé is a bistro-like restaurant concept by McDonald's Corporation in an effort to gain a share of the ever popular and expanding gourmet coffee market, to avoid losing market share to companies such as Starbucks. With comfortable leather chairs and couches, natural wood accents, and bistro style tables, the ambience is that of a typical modern coffee shop. Dine-in patrons forego the plastic trays and paper wrappers for the more elegant china plates and stainless steel silverware.

The menu boasts the standard bistro fare, including paninis, coffee and espresso drinks, and baked goods and pastries, and all menu items are available for take-out. House coffee blends are sold both normally and in tins for home brewing.

The concept was introduced in Australia in 1993 and has been successful in several other countries, including Ireland, Brazil, Israel, Chile, Panama, New Zealand, Colombia, France, Italy, Singapore, the Philippines and most recently Canada. There are 22 McCafés in Hong Kong. The concept has recently been introduced into the U.S., including a McCafé in Orlando, Florida. The first McCafe was in Raleigh, NC.

Extreme McDonald's

• The northernmost McDonald's restaurant is on the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi, Finland.
• The southernmost franchise is in Punta Arenas, Chile.
• The world's easternmost McDonald's is in New Zealand, in the city of Gisborne. and the westernmost restaurant is in Western Samoa, as they are the closest to the International Date Line. Because of this, it is said that "the sun never sets on the Golden Arches," a parody on the old claim "the sun never sets on the British Empire."
• The McDonald's with the world's largest McDonald's Playplace is located in Orlando, Florida, USA, off International Drive. It sports two floors, a massive game and arcade area (much like at Chuck E. Cheese's) and a McGourmet section where panini and gourmet sundaes are for sale.
• The lowest elevation McDonald's is located in the village of Ein Bokek in Israel, near the Dead Sea, at 396 meters (1,300 feet) below sea level.
• The highest elevation McDonald's was located in La Paz, Bolivia, at 3,600 meters (11,800 feet) above sea level, before it closed in 2002.
• The building to host the highest (above ground level) McDonald's restaurant is the KL Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
• The busiest McDonald's in the United States is (according to the Stamford Advocate newspaper) located in Darien, Connecticut, in a rest area of Interstate 95. The busiest McDonald's in Canada is in Cambridge, Ontario, off of the 401 Highway[6].

Other interesting restaurants

• A McDonald's near Vinita, Oklahoma is situated above Interstate 44, such that it is possible to eat while cars and trucks pass underneath.
• McDonald's recently won a contract with the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to place restaurants in renovated oases, many of which are located over the tollways.
• A former McDonald's in St. Louis, Missouri was a riverboat on the Mississippi River. The restaurant is now closed.
• Sälen in Sweden opened the first ski-through McDonald's in the world.
• A McDonald's located in East Coast Park in Singapore has a skate-thru, together with the main restaurant.
• The McDonald's restaurant in Bray, Ireland occupies the entire former Town Hall.
• In Israel, some McDonald's restauraunts are kosher, although most are not; there is a further kosher restaurant in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.
• In Moscow, Russia, a McDonald's exists that also doubles as a firehouse museum/memorial.
• McDonald's sometimes subdues or varies its corporate image to blend in with the local environment. For example, in Sedona, Arizona, a McDonald's has "Green Arches" to fit in with the city's natural look. Similarly, one in Paris has a white McDonald's "M."
• The 24th Street & Mission Avenue Mission District restaurant , San Francisco, California, has a mural inside and on the outside walls. It portrays small children from the neighborhood and was painted by Precita Eyes (a local muralist group) and the neighborhood children the mural displays.
• A McDonald's at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is the only store in Cuba (McDonald's is subject to the Cuban embargo). McDonald's fare has been used as a reward for prisoners in the detention camps.
• In a McDonald's in Ontario, Canada, murals of rolling hills, blue skies and golf greens cover the walls. A neon sign displaying "The Nineteenth Hole" is situated above the counter, referring the tradition of calling the clubhouse or bar on a golf course the "nineteenth hole".
• A McDonald's located in the The Pentagon occupies one of the former cafeterias.
• The most-visited McDonald's Restaurant in 1986 was located on a large floating boat at the 1986 Worlds Fair. "Expo '86" was hosted in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The restaurant is now floating, abandoned, outside downtown Vancouver.

Menu

Main article: McDonald's menu items

McDonald's offers a variety of fast-foods, desserts, and beverages. Some items are only specific to certain regions.

McDonald's TV campaigns and slogans

Main article: McDonald's TV campaigns and slogans

To date, McDonald's has used a total of twenty-three different slogans in United States advertising, as well as a few other slogans for select countries and regions.

Hamburger University

In Oak Brook, Illinois, where the company headquarters is located, is the first Hamburger University, a school for future executive managers of regional franchises. Adjacent to the building is a McDonald's-themed hotel. Similar "Hamburger U" training schools have been set up around the world.

Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of McDonald's are: Hall Adams, Edward Brennan, Robert Eckert, Enrique Hernandez, Jeff Hunter, Richard Lenny, Walter Massey, Andrew McKenna, Cary McMillan, Michael J. Roberts, John W. Rogers, James A. Skinner, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Roger W. Stone

See also

• McDonald's menu items
• McDonaldland: Ronald McDonald, Birdie the Early Bird, Grimace, Hamburglar, The Fry Kids, Mayor McCheese
• Happy Meal, Mighty Kids Meal
• Pret a Manger, Chipotle Mexican Grill, McDonald's subsidiaries
• McWords - the use of the "Mc" as a prefix to create a (usually) pejorative term
• I'm lovin' it
• Golden Arches
• List of countries with McDonald's franchises
• McDonald's TV campaigns and slogans
• McDonald's urban legends
• George Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis
• McMurder in San Ysidro, California
• Don Gorske, a McDonald's enthusiast who has eaten over 20,000 Big Mac hamburgers
• Lincoln Fry, a viral marketing campaign centering around what is supposedly a McDonald's fry with Abraham Lincoln's likeness on it
• Burger King - McDonald's biggest rival
• List of pop culture references to real restaurants
• List of promotions by McDonald's
• Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser

Documentaries about McDonald's Corporation

• The emergence and evolution of McDonald's business in Japan is documented in Terry Sanders' film The Japan Project: Made in America.
• Morgan Spurlock's diet of nothing but McDonald's for 30 days is documented in Super Size Me.
• McLibel 2005 (remake of 'McLibel - two world's collide' (1997)) from Spanner Films http://www.spannerfilms.net/?lid=161

External links

• McDonald's official worldwide website
• DMOZ: McDonald's, directory of links
• McSpotlight, an "Anti-McDonald's extravaganza"
• McDonald's Company Ratings and Political Contributions
• FKMD, an "Unofficial forum of McDonald's workers"
• McDonald's Official Collector blog
• Transcripts of McDonald's most recent conference calls
• Online critic videogame about McDonald's management.
• [7],Coalition of Immokalee Workers: Campaign Against McDonald's