Chapter 10 Reading Across the Genres 271

Practical implications- For the last four decades, Americans' obsession with
( fast serving, cheap meals has made the fast-food restaurant a mainstay in
their daily life. As the appetite for fast food grows, every corner of the American
Society has been infiltrated by fast-food restaurants. With the increasing
number of fast-food restaurants competing in the market, their survival often
rests on their ability to sustain high-q_uality services and meet changing
needs/preferences of customers. This paper provides practical guidelines for
enhancing the competitiveness of the fast-food restaurant franchise.
Originality/value- This paper is one of the first to compare the service
q_uality of fast-food franchises in the USA and develop dynamic service
q_uality standards for fast-food restaurant franchises using a longitudinal
study. (Min & Min 2011)

Reading and Understanding an Academic

Journal Article
Directions: Read this article to learn about the historical events that set the
stage for Ray Kroc's business empire, McDonald's. (Hint: Preview the title, the
abstract, and the first and last paragraphs before reading the entire article.) Then
write the answers to the questions that follow in the spaces provided.

Ray Kroc (1qo2- 1q84): Flipping over Efficiency

by Meryl Davids
Abstract
Ray Kroc was already 53 years old when he opened his first McDonald's in suburban
( Chicago. It was a replica of the McDonald brothers' San Bernardino, California, restaurant.
Ultimately, what Kroc did best was to position his McChain as a family-friendly value
eatery, and to ensure that each eating experience was identical, so a customer from New
York vacationing in Florida would know exactly what he was in for.
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Full Text
Often, it's not the person who invents the better mousetrap, but the person who has the
vision to set that mousetrap where all the critters are.
Ray Kroc was already 53 years old when he opened his first McDonald's in suburban
Chicago. It was a replica of the McDonald brothers' San Bernardino, California, restaurant,
based on siblings Maurice ("Mac") and Richard's ("Dick") sizzling concept of producing
a limited menu of burgers, fries, and shakes in assembly-line fashion. The brothers even
developed McDonald's famed symbol, the golden arches. Business was brisk, but the men
gave no thought to adding locations. That brainstorm came from Kroc, who recognized
America's growing desire for a quick, inexpensive, and dependable place to eat out.
Of course, Kroc's expansion of McDonald's to its current place as the world's No. 1
fast-food chain with 25,000 restaurants in 115 countries and revenues of $12.4 billion is
now the stuff of legends. Ultimately, what Kroc did best was to position his McChain as a
family-friendly value eatery, and to ensure that each eating experience was identical, so
a customer from New York vacationing in Florida would know exactly what he was in for.
He accomplished these objectives by carefully controlling franchisees, giving them little
freedom to experiment with menu items, pricing, or decor (that stranglehold would cause
problems for the chain in later years, but during Kroc's reign it worked masterfully). In many
ways, his operation was perfect for the times, when a postwar America, still searching for
its footing, was eager to embrace the sense of confidence that came from conformity.
Ray Kroc had put his fingers into numerous lines of work before he came across
McDonald's. After a stint as an ambulance driver during WWI, he was a musical director for
a radio station, a salesman of Florida real estate, and a sales manager for a cup company.
In 1937, in what would be a pattern he'd repeat with McDonald's, he learned of a customer
who was buying cups by the truckload. It turned out that Earl Prince had invented a five-
spindle "Multimixer" to make numerous shakes at once. Showing his entrepreneurial
mettle, four years later Kroc mortgaged his home and invested his entire life savings to
become an exclusive distributor for the product.
For the next 17 years, Kroc crossed the country peddling his mixer. Then he again
learned of a customer buying vast quantities of his product, this time the multimixer.
Perplexed how such a small restaurant could be selling so many shakes, Kroc stopped
in at the McDonald brothers' store. He wasted no time pitching the franchise idea to the
brothers. "Who could we get to open them for us?" they wondered aloud. "Well, what
about me?" Kroc famously responded.
Ironically, Kroc's first McDonald's outlet was closer to home cooking than the growing
chain would soon become. Potatoes were peeled right in the restaurant, and fresh
hamburger meat came from local suppliers. Ever eager to expand, Kroc opened two more
stores in his first year.
Because quality and cleanliness were near obsessions with Kroc (his oft-quoted motto:
"If you have time to lean, you have time to clean"), he automated as many operations as
possible and instituted rigid training programs at "Hamburger University" for franchise
owners, whom he required to manage their own stores. Many who came in contact with
Kroc over the years complained of his abrasive manner and large ego, but his insistence on
absolute conformity to his ideas was largely the reason for the chain's success.
In the same way that Henry Ford realized that by keeping selections limited (e.g., color
choice: black) he could mass produce economical cars, Kroc kept the menu simple and
the standardization high, to mass produce economical meals. Each patty, for example,
had to weigh exactly 1.6 ounces and be exactly 0.221 inches thick. Manuals documented
to the second how to make a shake. Then, through massive advertising, Kroc enticed
Americans to recognize their need for his product. As Kroc once cleverly said, "The
definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way."
Kroc couldn't pull off that same feat in some of his later ventures, however. He had little
success with an upscale hamburger restaurant, pie shops, a theme park, or even the San
Diego Padres, which he purchased in the mid-1970s but gave up operating control of after
just a few years.

272 Chapter 10 Reading Across the Genres

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But of course he had that golden touch with McDonald's. Customers flocked to his
outlets in such numbers, he sold his billionth burger in 1963, two years after he had bought

( out the brothers for what in retrospect was a meager $2.7 million. During the next 21 years,
until his death in 1984, he sold billions and billions more, thanks to a worldwide empire
that, at his death, numbered a remarkable 7,500 stores. (Davids 1999)

1. How did Kroc get the idea to start a McDonald's franchise?

------

2. List three business practices of Kroc's franchises that led to his chain's success.

3. What contributed to Kroc's idea of creating McDonald's? _ _ _ _ _ __

4. Why did Kroc create identical fast-food establishments? _ _ _ _ _ _ __

5. What historical event set the stage for the success of McDonald's? _ _ __

(
Reading Newspaper Articles
If you are looking for the most curren t developments in your area of st udy,
you might choose to read a newspaper. N ews articles are generally reliable,
up-to-date sources on topics of current interest. A newspaper is a current
periodical that is published usually daily. You will find that newspapers are
written on different levels and for different audiences. Generally, for college
research, select more fact-based ones, such as The New York Times, The
Wall Street Journal, or The Washington Post.

Tips for Understanding Newspaper Articles

Following are some tips for reading and understanding newspaper articles:
• Newspaper articles are written for the general public.
• The author's purpose for writing a news article is to inform.
• The most important information is presented first. This can be found in
the headline and the lead (first and/or second) paragraph(s). T hey pro-
vide objective information about the news event.
• The remainder of the article is designed to provide details to help the
reader understand more specifically what happened.
• Sometimes, the writer will include details from an interview. This pro-
vides the reader with subjective information. A critical reader has to
( distinguish between fact and opinion, detect the tone of the speaker, and
recognize the speaker's point of view or bias.

Chapter 10 Reading Across the Genres 273