Brothers Richard and Maurice began their restaurant which would become synonymous with America, Fast Food and crappy work (see McJob), for better or worse, on this day. If you saw their place on this day, you wouldn’t recognize it because it was a typical car-hop joint like Steak n’ Shake in the Seventies. They made the famous changes around 1948 when they streamlined the menu to just burgers, fries and drinks; ditched the plates for pollution-making paper stuff; and fired the carhops as now people had to come to the window. Oh, plus their speedier, Taylorist-efficiency model Ray Kroc loved leading to an empire in 1955.
Lately, the burgers have improved as McDonald’s is using fresher meat on the premium items people tend to get, namely the Quarter Pounder. I have yet to try a Big Mac to see if they did the same. Their fries? Still need to eat them while warm or hotter, once they’re lukewarm or cold, they’re trash.