What Do You Know About Fast Food?

Nine Fast Food Facts:

1. White Castle, started by J. Walter Anderson and Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram, is considered to be the first fast food restaurant. Its major product was a hamburger, which had been sold as sandwiches by street vendors since the 1890s.
2. In 1965, a college student named Fred De Luca and family friend Dr. Peter Buck started Subway in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The first restaurant was called Pete’s Super Submarines. Subway has locations in over 80 countries.
3. Carl Karcher of Anaheim, California, launched Carl’s Jr in 1956. They were mini versions of the restaurant he already owned and, hence, he called them Carl’s Jr.
4. McDonald’s is one of the largest owners of real estate in the world and it earns the majority of its profits from collecting rent, not from selling food.
5. A&W Root Beer is named after Roy Allen and Frank Wright, the founders of the company. Allen bought the recipe from a pharmacist who had perfected it for making root beer. A&W was one of the first fast food franchises.
6. In 1949, Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California: the McDonald Brothers Burger Bar Drive-In.
7. Also in 1949, Forrest Raffel and his younger brother Leroy created a restaurant that sold roast beef sandwiches. They spelled out the initials “Raffel Brothers (RB) to create the name “Arby’s.”
8. McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes and the second largest purchaser of chicken in the world. Its annual orders for french fries constitute 7.5% of America’s entire potato crop.
9. Two fast food chains claim to have opened the first drive-ins: Pig Stand, which opened in 1921 in Texas, and A&W Root Beer, which launched in California in 1919.

The source of these fun facts is the Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food, by Andrew F. Smith, published in 2006 by Greenwood Press.

Image source:  Wikimedia Commons