A hothead like that, you don't know what he's capable of.
It's all bluster, Dick. His bark is worse than his bite.
That's what Neville Chamberlain said.
Ray Kroc
Michael Keaton · 22 quotes
Dick McDonald
Nick Offerman · 6 quotes
Mac McDonald
John Carroll Lynch · 6 quotes
Most scenes together: Ray Kroc & Dick McDonald (5), Ray Kroc & Mac McDonald (5), Dick McDonald & Mac McDonald (4)
The Founder quotes
Page 1 of 2I just have to ask you one thing. Something I've never understood.
All right.
That day we met, when we gave you the tour...
Uh-huh. What about it?
We showed you everything. The whole system, all our secrets. We were an open book. So why didn't you just-
Steal it? Just, grab your ideas and run off start my own business using all those ideas of yours. It- it would have failed.
How do you know?
Am I the only one who got the kitchen tour? You must have invited lots of people back there, huh?
And?
How many of them succeeded?
Lots of people started restaurants.
As big as McDonald's?
Of course not.
No one ever has and no one ever will because they all lacked that one thing, that makes McDonald's special.
Which is?
Even you don't know what it is.
Enlighten me.
It's not just the system, Dick. It's the name. That glorious name, "McDonald's". It could be... anything you want it to be. It's limitless, it's wide open. It sounds, uh... it sounds like... it sounds like America. That's compared to Kroc. "What a crock. What a load of crock". Would you eat at a place named Kroc's? Kroc's has that blunt, Slavic sound. "Kroc's". But McDonald's, oh boy. That's a beauty. Yeah... a guy named McDonald? He's never gonna get pushed around in life.
So, you don't have a check for 1.35 million dollars in your pocket? Bye, Dick.
So if you can't beat'em, buy'em.
I remember the first time I saw that name stretched across your stand out there. It was love at first sight. I knew right then and there... I had to have it. And now I do.
You don't have it.
You sure about that? Bye, Dick.
Divorce Lawyer
When quietly trying to settle a divorce, the first thing to ask is, what will she want? And is her request reasonable and equitable, in terms of marital property. There's a house, a car, savings and checking accounts, insurance.
Just give it to her. House, car, insurance.
Divorce Lawyer
What about the business?
Divorce Lawyer
Ray, you have to understand, she's-
Let me explain something to you. That's never going to happen. I would sooner die, than give her one share of stock in McDonald's.
Employee (San Bernadino)
Hi, welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?
Yeah, I'll have a hamburger, french fries, and a Coca-Cola.
Employee (San Bernadino)
That'll be 35 cents, please.
All right.
Employee (San Bernadino)
[Gives him 50 cents]
15 cents is your change.
Employee (San Bernadino)
[Gives it to him, then turns around and grabs a bag and a drink with a straw in it, and sets it in front of him]
Here you are.
Employee (San Bernadino)
Your food.
No, no, no, I just ordered.
Employee (San Bernadino)
And now it's here.
[Goes to grab it, but is still hesitant]
Where's the umm... the silverware and plates and everything?
Employee (San Bernadino)
You just eat it straight out of the wrapper, and then you throw it all out.
Really? OK.
Employee (San Bernadino)
[Appears uneasy himself answering his questions]
In your car, at the park, at home. Wherever you like.
OK. OK. OK, thank you.
[Leaves the window and sits down to eat]
Harry J. Sonneborn
So to summarize, you have a minuscule revenue stream. No cash reserves. And an albatross of a contract that requires you to go through a slow approval process to enact changes if they're approved at all.
Which they never are.
Harry J. Sonneborn
Am I missing anything?
That about sums it up.
Harry J. Sonneborn
Tell me about the land.
The... land?
Harry J. Sonneborn
The land, the buildings, how that whole aspect of it works.
Oh, pretty simple really. Franchisee finds a piece of land he likes. Gets a lease, usually 20 years. Takes out a construction loan, throws up a building and off he goes.
Harry J. Sonneborn
So the operator selects the site.
Yeah.
Harry J. Sonneborn
He picks the property?
Right.
Harry J. Sonneborn
You provide the training, the system, the operational know-how, and he's responsible for the rest?
Is there a problem?
Harry J. Sonneborn
A big one. You don't seem to realize what business you're in. You're not in the burger business. You're in the real estate business. You don't build an empire off a 1.4 percent cut of a 15-cent hamburger. You build it by owning the land upon which that burger is cooked. What you ought to be doing is buying up plots of land then turning around and leasing said plots to franchisees who as a condition of their deal, should be permitted to lease from you and you alone. This will provide you with two things. One, a steady, up-front revenue stream. Money flows in before the first stake is in the ground. Two, greater capital for expansion. Which in turn fuels further land acquisition, which in turn fuels further expansion and so on and so on. Land. That's where the money is.
[giving Kroc his first tour of McDonald's]
Speed. That's the name of the game. The first stop for every McDonald's hamburger is the grill. Manned by two cooks, whose sole job it is to cook those all-beef beauties to perfection. Meanwhile, as the patty cooks, our dressers get the buns ready. Watch out. Burger crossing!
McDonald's Employees: Burger crossing!
Every McDonald's burger has two pickles, a pinch of onions, and a precise shot of ketchup and mustard.
We made them.
Made them?
Yes, custom-built. The whole kitchen is. Next, this is the finishing station where we put the whole thing together. And...
[leads Ray to the end of the line, holding up a wrapped hamburger]
Voila! A fresh, delicious burger from grill to counter in 30 seconds.
[telling Kroc the story behind starting McDonald's]
Well, we were young and hungry. There wasn't a job to be had in all of New Hampshire, so we decided to pack our bags and head west, to Hollywood. I wanted to be in the movie business, and Dick, well, he wanted to be...
Employed.
So, we landed jobs at Columbia Pictures, driving trucks.
Huh.
And after a few years, we've had enough saved to buy our own little piece of show business-a beautiful little movie theatre in Glendora, which would've been swell-except for the timing: it was September of '29.
One minute, we're screening The Gold Diggers of Broadway, and the next it's "Brother, can you spare a dime?"
I couldn't.
So, we moved the restaurant, we're setting up shop, but now we wanna do a few tweaks, because now it's 1940 and drive-ins are all the rage. I mean, they're the hottest thing going, and I say, "Dick, we gotta get in on this," and Dick says...
Okay.
And two months later, we opened for business: McDonald's Famous BBQ. 27-item menu, uniformed waitresses, bring your food right to the car, and it goes gangbusters. We're going "great guns!" But then, sales started to level off.
The drive-in model, as we've learned, has a few built-in problems.
Tell me about it.
I mean, for starters, there's the customer issue. Drive-ins tend to attract, shall we say, a less-than-desirable clientele.
Teenagers.
Hot-rodders and hooligans. Juvenile delinquents in blue jeans. And then, there's the service. It takes forever and a day for your food to arrive, and when it finally does...
It's usually wrong.
Yeah, the carhops are too busy dodging gropes to remember that you wanted strawberry phosphate, not cherry.
Well, that's a thing to remember at all.
And then, there's the expenses. The huge payroll due to the large staff required, dishes being constantly broken or stolen.
Tremendous overhead.
So, one day, Dick has a realization. He sees that the bulk of our sales are in only three items: Hamburgers, french fries, and soft drinks.
87%.
So, we say to ourselves, let's focus on what sells. And that's exactly what we do. Brisket, gone. Tamales, gone. But, we don't stop there. We look at everything. What else don't we need?
Turns out, quite a lot.
Mac McDonald and Dick McDonald
Carhops?
Walk up to a window, get your food yourself.
Dishes?
All-paper packaging, disposable.
Cigarette machines, jukeboxes.
Drive out the riff-raff.
Creating a family-friendly environment.
But that's not enough.
Alright.
See, our whole lives, we'd piggy-backed off other people's ideas. We wanted something that wasn't just different, it had to be better. It needed to be ours, and that's what brings us to the biggest cut of all.
Which was?
The wait.
Orders ready in 30 seconds, not 30 minutes.
Jack Horford
It appears to be a hamburger.
It's not a McDonald's hamburger.
[Ray lifts off the bun, showing the flaws]
Too much ketchup. Three pickles, not two. Lettuce. Lettuce, Jack?
Jack Horford
Do you think we could discuss this later? We're in the middle of...
[interrupts and shows Jack the inside of the hamburger]
And the patty, tragically overcooked.
Jerry Cullen
I don't know, Ray, looks good to me.
I was by your restaurant today too.
Jerry Cullen
And, what about it?
What about it? You got corn on the cob, you got fried chicken.
Jerry Cullen
People love fried chicken.
Do they? Well let them go somewhere where they serve fried chicken and your kitchen is filthy, like what the hell is the matter with you guys?
Jerry Cullen
Look, Ray, I don't know about you, but I'm retired.
Jack Horford
You said this would be a good place to park our money. It's an investment.
Jerry Cullen
If I wanted a job, I would have applied for a cook position.
You couldn't get a job as a cook at one of my restaurants.
[Ray angrily throws the burger at Jerry and storms off]
Let me explain something to you, Dick... You boys have full say over what goes on inside the restaurants. But outside, above, below... your authority stops at the door. And at the floor. All right?
What is he saying?
He's buying the land.
Our land?
Look, if you don't wanna make a profit, that's fine. But don't stop the rest of us.
Us?
Us, as in everyone but you.
Who did you send them to?
Everyone but you.
You have no right. You are to stop this instant, is that clear?
Nah...
What the hell does that mean, nah? You will abide by the terms of your deal.
I am through taking marching orders from you... You and your endless parade of NOs. Constantly cowering in the face of progress.
If phony powdered milkshakes is your idea of progress, you have a profound misunderstand of what McDonald's is about.
I have a far greater understanding of McDonald's than you two yokels.
What? You will do as we say.
Nope.
You have a contract!
You know, contracts are like hearts: they're made to be broken.
What's your name?
Leonard Rosenblatt
Leonard. Leonard Rosenblatt.
Rosenblatt? What's a Jew doing selling Catholic Bibles?
Leonard Rosenblatt
Making a living.
While you two boys were content to sit back and become a couple of also-rans... I wanna take the future. I wanna win. And you don't get there by being some "aw shucks" guy sap. There's no place in business for people like that. Business is war. It's dog eat dog, rat eat rat. If my competitor were drowning, I'd walk over and put a hose right in his mouth. Can you say the same?
Hence, your single location.
We want you out of this company, Ray.
Mac, how do you propose we do that?
We will sue you, whatever it takes.
And you'd probably win. But you can't afford to sue me. I'd bury you in court costs alone. Mac, I'm the president and C.E.O. of a major corporation with land holdings in 17 states... You run a burger stand in the desert. I'm national. You're **** local.
[Mac collapses]
Ya know what, I drove through a lot of towns. A lot of small towns. And they all had two things in common... They had a courthouse and they had a church. On top of the church, got a cross... and on top of the courthouse they have a flag. Flags, crosses, crosses flags. Driving around I just cannot stop thinking about this tremendous restaurant. Now at the risk of sounding blasphemous... forgive me. Those arches have a lot in common with those buildings. A building with a cross on top, what is that? It's a gathering place... where decent wholesome people come together and they share values protected by that American flag. It could be said that that beautiful building flanked by those arches... signifies more or less the same thing. It doesn't just say, "Delicious hamburgers inside"... They signify family. It signifies community. It's a place where Americans come together to break bread. I am telling you... McDonald's can be... the new American church. Feeding bodies and feeding souls and it ain't just open on Sundays, boys. It's open 7 days a week. Crosses... Flags... Arches.