Fast Food

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Wendy Woloson

McDonald's experienced its stiffest competition in the 1960s from Burger Chef, which was eventually sold to General Foods and absorbed by Hardee's in the early 1970s. Burger King was a more enduring rival. It began in 1954 as a "walk-up" called InstaBurger King, and offered no interior seating. Dave Edgerton and Jim McLamore, its Miami founders, shortened the name to Burger King in 1957. While the business featured hamburgers, similar to McDonald's and White Castle, it set itself apart by offering the "flame-broiled" Whopper--a much larger hamburger (one quarter of a pound compared to the 1.6 ounce McDonald's hamburger)--and instituted an advertising campaign that promised people could "Have It Your Way," by letting customers choose their own toppings.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, also a viable competitor to McDonald's, took a different approach by offering stereotypical southern food--buckets of fried chicken, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, and biscuits and gravy. Founded by "Colonel" Harlan Sanders (1890-1980) in 1954, the franchise that made chicken "Finger Lickin' Good" consisted of over 300 outlets by 1963 and was enjoying revenues of over $500,000; by 1966 KFC had a gross income of $15 million.

There were other fast food franchises that bear mentioning. Arby's first appeared in 1964 in Boardman, Ohio, and was the brainchild of Forrest and Leroy Raffel, who tried to attract a more discriminating clientele by offering roast beef sandwiches, using an old west decor, and featuring more expensive menu items. Dairy Queen, started in 1944 by partners Harry Axene and John McCullough of Davenport, Iowa, sold hotdogs and ice cream, and had 2,500 outlets by 1948. Domino's, with delivery-only pizza service, was founded by Tom Monaghan, who opened his first shop in 1960 and turned to franchising in 1967. At the end of 1986, Domino's sold over 189 million pizzas, accruing sales of $2 billion. Hardee's, largely an imitation of Burger King, began in Greenville, North Carolina in 1961, and its outlets numbered over 900 by 1975. Howard Johnson's, named for its founder and known for its bright orange rooftops and homemade ice cream, started out as a set of franchised roadside restaurants in 1935. By 1967 "HoJo's" boasted over 800 restaurants, but was a victim of the "burger wars" in the 1980s, eventually going out of business.

Expanding into "ethnic food," Taco Bell originated in 1962 in San Bernardino, California. Even though it came from the idea of Glen Bell, a telephone repairman, John Martin better merchandised the company beginning in 1983, and was responsible for much of its success. Among other things, Martin omitted all ethnic symbols to counteract the negative associations people made with Mexican restaurants; he even changed the logo from a sleeping Mexican with a sombrero to a pastel-colored bell. Wendy's, specializing in bigger, better, and more expensive hamburgers, introduced the first drive-thru windows at their restaurants, which were so popular that Burger King and McDonald's had to follow suit. Founded in 1972 by R. Dave Thomas in Columbus, Ohio, it had 9 outlets and sales of $1.8 million at the end of that same year.