20 fascinating facts about McDonald’s

The very first McDonald’s restaurant was opened by the McDonald Brothers in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. Even though that was over 80 years ago, there are still older burger chains! White Castle—founded in 1921—is credited as being the first hamburger chain, but the first A&W restaurant started serving root beer and burgers in 1923 (although it originated as a stand that opened four years prior).

Ronald and Maurice McDonald’s first restaurant was located at 1398 North E Street at West 14th Street in San Bernardino. In 1953, 13 years after it opened, that location was demolished in order to construct a building more fitting with McDonald’s image. However, because the brothers had sold the name to Ray Kroc, it had to be called “The Big M.” It went out of business less than 20 years later, but the sign still stands outside of what is now a privately-owned McDonald’s museum.

You might picture Ray Kroc—the guy who launched McDonald’s to superstar status—as a young go-getter, but that wasn’t the case. Kroc was 52 years old when he first became acquainted with the restaurant in 1954; 53 when he opened his first location in Des Plaines, Illinois; and 59 when he bought the company. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Kroc was a milkshake machine salesman—he actually found out about McDonald’s after selling them eight Multi-Mixers. A replica of Kroc’s first restaurant was later built in Des Plaines.

When Ray Kroc started franchising McDonald’s restaurants, he reached out to a famous friend with a business offer. Kroc’s friend was then a very wealthy man, but Ray originally met him when the two were teenagers in the ambulance corps during World War II. Kroc knew him as the guy who was always doodling in his free time, and the rest of the world would eventually know him as the founder of Disney, Walt Disney. A deal between the two would have meant a McDonald’s opening up in Disneyland, but it never came to fruition, as Disney reportedly wanted more of a markup than Kroc was willing to allow.

A Cincinnati franchisee was tired of losing sales during lent—when many Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays—and decided to invent a new sandwich. The Filet-O-Fish was introduced in 1962, and it’s been on the menu ever since. (The only difference is that it was initially made with halibut, then cod for several decades, and now Marine Stewardship Council-certified wild-caught Alaska Pollock.)

This probably comes as no surprise to you: McDonald’s is the largest restaurant chain in the world. Their website officially lists “more than 36,000 locations in more than 100 countries,” but more accurate estimates place the number closer to 40,000. Wondering about second place? That spot belongs to Subway.

McDonald’s is so popular and so omnipresent that about 69 million people eat at McDonald’s every day—more than the populations of countries like Italy, France, and England! In America alone, 45 million people eat McDonald’s daily, and according to the company’s research, 90% of Americans will eat there at least once a year, and 33% will eat there once a month.

Out of the 40,000 locations worldwide, fewer than 400 are in Africa. In fact, only four of the 54 African nations have at least one McDonald’s restaurant: Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, and South Africa.

Have you ever wondered where the nearest McDonald’s is? If you’re in the U.S., the answer is no more than 115 miles. America has more than 13,000 McDonald’s locations dispersed across all 50 states, so if you crave a Big Mac, you can usually get one in under two hours.

It’s rare, but a few McDonald’s locations around the world have arches that are colored something other than gold. This includes white arches at one Paris location, turquoise arches in Sedona, Arizona; black arches in Monterey, California; and red arches in Rockland, California.

Once upon a time, the McDonald’s logo only had a single arch. In 1961, Ray Kroc trademarked the name “McDonald’s” and also a new logo with not one but two golden arches. There are still about a dozen locations in the U.S. still rocking the single-arch logo!

You’ve probably seen McDonald’s in a mall, in an airport, as a storefront, and as a standalone restaurant, but there are many more unique locations out there. In Freeport, Maine, McDonald’s is housed in a colonial mansion that’s more than 170 years old. Another McDonald’s in a mansion in Hyde Park, New York, is more than 200 years old! The McDonald’s in Roswell, New Mexico, is in a UFO-shaped building. But our favorite is located in New Zealand—that one has seating inside an airplane!

If you think the McDonald’s mansions are fancy, get this: The Queen of England opened a McDonald’s in 2015! Okay, the late Queen Elizabeth II didn’t actually open it herself (although that would have been an entertaining ribbon-cutting ceremony), but the super-posh restaurant at the Banbury Gateway Shopping Park in Oxfordshire sits on land that’s part of the $34 billion Crown Estate, meaning she did, technically, own it. With the Queen’s passing, we assume Charles III is now the proprietor, making him the Burger King.

With 20% of meals sold at McDonald’s containing a toy—about 5,000 Happy Meals a minute, according to one figure—that adds up to about 1.5 billion toys sold globally every year. This makes McDonald’s the largest toy distributor in the world, meaning they sell even more than toy brands like Hasbro and Mattel.

You might think every McDonald’s McNugget is special, like a greasy little meat snowflake, but they actually come in distinct shapes. For quality control reasons, McDonald’s chooses to limit the shape options to four, and the company even has internal names for them: the boot, the bone, the bell, and the ball. 

It’s not your imagination: Coca-Cola really does taste better at McDonald’s. It’s not just because the syrup and carbonated water combine in the restaurant—you can get that at any place with a soda fountain—but because the syrup is shipped to McDonald’s in stainless steel containers instead of the traditional plastic bags.

It was once just a legend, but its existence has since been confirmed: There’s a McDonald’s Gold Card that is worth a lifetime of free McDonald’s food. Only a few people are known to have these elusive cards, and of course, they’re all rich people who can already afford all the McDonald’s they want, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Rob Lowe.

Back in 1998, McDonald’s invested in a small chain of 14 Mexican restaurants called Chipotle. McDonald’s helped grow the chain to 500 restaurants in about seven years—and ended up owning 90% of the company—but saw the new venture as a distraction and sold its shares. Chipotle took off soon after and now has more than 3,000 locations nationwide.

This sounds totally made up, but McDonald’s actually does operate a training facility called Hamburger University. It was originally located in one of the restaurant’s basements but is now housed in a fancy complex on the site that used to be Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. There are also campuses in other countries!

Before we get to the “still” part, we think some of you will be surprised just to know that McSpaghetti ever existed. This menu option—which consisted of spaghetti topped with marinara sauce, meatballs, and shredded cheese—was introduced in the ‘70s and lasted less than a decade before being discontinued. However, you can still get it in at least two places: Orlando, Florida (at the largest McDonald’s in the country) and the Philippines, where spaghetti and McDonald’s are both quite popular.