THE STORY OF FAST FOOD

Fast Food is part of modern-day life. People want food which is quick and easy to eat. This is why fast-food restaurants have become so popular. They are everywhere. You usually buy a hamburger with chips and a drink to eat in or take away.

The story of fast food restaurants began in California in 1937. Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a restaurant where people could buy hot dogs and milkshakes. After a few years, all the teenagers in the town started eating there.

In 1948 the McDonald brothers decided to reduce their prices, so they started to put their food in boxes for people to take away. The restaurant became a ‘self-service’ restaurant. To show their customers how clean their restaurant and kitchen were, they put windows around the kitchen so people could see how the food was cooked. They also had a group of young people in white uniforms whose job was to keep the restaurant clean and tidy.

In 1955 Ray Kroc, a businessman who had invented the milkshake machine, opened the first official McDonald’s restaurant. During the 1960s the McDonald Company opened hundreds of restaurants all over the United States. During the next ten years a lot of McDonald’s restaurants were opened in different parts of Europe, Australia and Japan.

Now there are more than 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in more than 70 countries. The McDonald Company has succeeded in opening restaurants in places like China and Russia, where people thought that nobody would like American food. Today a wider choice of meals are offered than before – breakfasts, fish burgers and desserts like apple pies. But, it still serves the classic hamburger and chips, typical of the country where the first restaurant started.