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The 1950's
 At McDonald's

At McDonald's
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 6 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.96

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    availability, fast-food, franchise, fatty, icon, specialty, finding, barbecue, executive, impressed, blame, profitable, billion, saying, successful, natural
     content words:    Golden Arches, San Bernardino, Mac McDonald, Speedee Service System, Ray Kroc, Des Plaines, Oak Brook, Hamburger University, Happy Meal, Ronald McDonald

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At McDonald's
By Jane Runyon 		  
1     There is hardly a place in the world that you can go and not see the famous Golden Arches. You can find a McDonald's restaurant in 119 different countries and territories. Those restaurants serve more than 50 million customers a day. They must be doing something right.
 
2     The original McDonald's restaurant opened in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. Two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald were the owners. In 1949, they developed a faster way of preparing and serving their popular hamburger sandwiches. They called it the "Speedee Service System." Their method proved to be very successful. They sold the right to own restaurants using their name to other people. This is called a franchise.
 
3     One day in 1953, a man named Ray Kroc visited one of the McDonald's restaurants. He was quite impressed with the methods the brothers had developed. He convinced the brothers to hire him. He would be in charge of finding other people interested in purchasing franchises. Kroc found his job to be very profitable. It didn't take long before he decided to buy the McDonald brothers out. He took over the whole operation. And the rest, as they say, is history.

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