Ray Kroc Talk

Remembering Kroc's contentious relationship with the McDonald's Brothers.

These days, the name "Ray Kroc" is more synonymous with McDonald's fast food eateries than the brothers who founded the restaurant chain. That's unusual for an enterprise to be more closely aligned with a franchisee. Whatever happened to the Richard and Maurice McDonald and how did Kroc, who started off as just a seller of restaurant equipment, takeover their hamburger empire?

The McDonald brothers' first passion was barbecue, so much so that they opened a barbecue stand in California in the late 1930s. Sure, it sold hamburgers (and hot dogs) too, but that was not the San Bernardino stand's main staple. When the economy dictated that the self-service establishment reduce and specialize its menu, that's when the fast-food hamburger, fries and shake idea was born.

It wasn't until Ray Kroc arrived to sell the brothers 48 mixers for making their shakes that Kroc and the McDonalds brothers met -- and hit it off, at first. Kroc had significantly more business savvy and vision than the brothers, who hadn't really thought about expansion. Kroc convinced the brothers to let him open a franchise in Illinois. He came up with so many innovative ideas to advance the business that he established a McDonald's Corporation, sold additional franchises and then persuaded the McDonalds to sell him rights to the entire business. The success of McDonald's under the leadership of Kroc is actually known in fast food circles as "the Kroc influence."

Although the brothers got $2.7 million from Kroc for selling their creation, they reportedly were not happy about it. They reportedly maintained a rather hostile relationship with Kroc. According to various versions of history, the brothers had an oral contract to retain a percentage of the business but Kroc refused to honor the agreement. Also, Kroc reportedly forced the closure of the McDonald's original San Bernardino eatery by opening a new, expansive McDonalds across the road.

Ray Kroc: Model of Community Benevolence

Kroc Family donations still helping families

Although the quality of food has changed drastically since Ray Kroc opened his first McDonalds, the spirit of Ray Kroc is evident in modern restaurants -- particularly through the playgrounds which underscore how much Kroc cared about children and families.

It would have been so easy for Kroc to fixate on simply being rich, but he was fixated on how to please families -- both inside McDonalds during dining and in their communities when they went home.

Kroc's establishment of The Ray Kroc Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House foundation (which later became the Ronald McDonald House Charities after his death) showed that the business genius was as interested in making sure families had housing and medical care as he was in giving them a quality cheeseburger at an inexpensive cost.

Today, it seems like most business owners only think about what they can get from customers, not what they can give.

I thought about Kroc's caring persona when I read this week that a Kroc Community Center was set to open in South Bend soon. It's a recreation center that will allow Indiana families in nearby economically repressed areas to have someplace to swim, play basketball, rock climb or challenge peers in chess. Ray Kroc and wife Joan, both deceased, left behind funding for multiple centers all across the U.S.

What a marvelous legacy these centers will be.

Today's entrepreneurs could learn a lot about the benevolence principle from Kroc, who once said "none of us is as good as all of us."

Of course, Kroc was likely speaking of a crew on the assembly line at McDonalds when he uttered this, but he practiced the same "all of us" philosophy through his humanitarian efforts.

It's no secret that the inexpensive meals cooked by workers at McDonalds over the decades provided cheap dinners and lunches for families in poor areas. So, it's quite appropriate that Kroc's financial bequests are still boosting the quality of life in poor neighborhoods today.