Richard "Dick" McDonald and Maurice "Mac" McDonald (died 1971), were two early fast food pioneers, originally from New Hampshire, who established the first McDonald's restaurant in 1940. The brothers' first food venture was a hot-dog stand in Arcadia, California called the Airdome. Using the profits generated, they closed it and opened their first restaurant, a barbecue drive-in named McDonald's a small drive-in venture in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. When the brothers realized that hamburgers were responsible for almost all their profits, they decided to concentrate on making them alone. Inspired by the assembly line of Henry Ford, in 1948 they closed their restaurant for several months, and pared service back to the essentials, offering a simple menu of hamburgers, french fries, and milk shakes, produced on a continuous basis (rather than made to order, as all restaurants had done) and with no substitutions offered. In 1954 a milk shake machine salesman, Ray Kroc, became inspired by the evident financial success of the brothers' concept, immediately grasping the restaurant's enormous potential. He partnered with the brothers, and within a few years turned their small restaurant into a huge franchise that would later become the McDonald's Corporation. Although Kroc turned McDonald's into a global giant, its guiding principles remained largely unchanged from those the McDonald brothers had devised in 1948. Mac McDonald died of cancer in 1971. In 1984, Dick McDonald was served the ceremonial 50,000,000,000th (50 billionth) McDonald's burger, having cooked the first one. Richard McDonald died in Manchester, New Hampshire in 1998, at age 89. Only part of the original sign remains of the first McDonald's, but plans exist for a company-sponsored museum. Ink signature and inscription, “To my good friend, June, with my best wishes, Richard J. McDonald,” on a McDonald's Founder business card, wood-textured with Golden Arches and the black imprinted McDonald's, with Japanese characters imprinted in black on the reverse 3 x 2.25 . In fine condition. R&R COA.
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