John Carroll Lynch and Nick Offerman star as Mac and Dick McDonald in "the Founder." (Photo: Daniel... [+]
The Founder, a perfectly nice movie about Ray Kroc and the bumpy beginnings of what is now a $25 billion a year business, is a pretty classic success story, and a familiar cautionary tale. So many people harbor fantasies of starting the next Starbucks or their own Shake Shack -- it’s helpful to see how these things used to and still often happen.
In this artful new film from director John Lee Hancock and the Weinstein brothers, Michael Keaton seems, at first, to be the Willy Loman of the restaurant set. But a clearly American tale has a happy American business ending, where the star deals the little guy out of his creation and legacy. Lugging his milkshake machine across the country, Keaton’s Kroc gains unexpectedly valuable experience and gingerly grabs a great thing when it’s handed to him, in a bright white paper bag.
What he discovers along the way is the proverbial Top 10 list of food service realities that make the chain and franchise food industry viable to this day:
Short cuts make money. Instant mixes, pre-chopped and chemically enhanced ingredients, and other so-called advancements, can explode profits, as well as waistbands. Currently a backlash has contributed to the vogue for natural and local foods.
Fast takes planning and practice, but you can do it. See the featurette below, exclusively provided to Forbes, on the McDonald brothers' invention of their Speedee service system, with workers' every move choreographed like a dance studio waltz with the help of a white chalk mockup on a vacant tennis court. It's a version of something every good kitchen designer still does. They use various computer programs now, but I know a lot of good restaurant owners and chefs who "walk the space" to figure things out. And even then, refinement is often required.
A little hoopla goes a long way. Before there was Instagram owners knew that balloons and horse rides, clowns and klieg lights -- just about anything to bring 'em in -- was worth a shot.
Menu focus is an idea that comes back around, often. Particularly in times of cultural or economic stress or uncertainty, like after a market crash, a tough election or a weekend in Vegas, we want something we know we love. Gambling on the plate goes way down.
Oh, and a lot of times the real money maker isn’t entirely visible. Perrier Water started as a way to use the glass the parent company produced. In the case of McDonald's and the restaurant business, it’s what a lot of other retail industries have learned: Whenever possible, own the land.
The other five on that list of food service realities that The Founder illustrates might include things like, using other people’s money (hence the periodic burst of IPOs); grabbing credit for other people’s ideas and innovations (it was actually James Beard who first put lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on a buttered, toasted bun); sometimes you just end up with your partner’s wife (I could tell you stories ...); giving people less can sometimes feel like more; and persistence, persistence, persistence. Ray Kroc's success was built on a tenacious salesmanship that is all too familiar in today’s world, especially when something strikes a chord, fills a need and feels fresh, and familiar, all at the same time.
It really is possible to use this film as classwork, reviewing each element of packaging, logo, promotion, menu mix, training psychology and a whole lot more, with a few more modern elements of diversity and evolved best practices tossed in.
Kroc also believed and proved that tone and story are everything. Dick and Mac McDonald, a charming, earnest pair of what used to be called rubes, seem to disappear from this very personal story of American dreaming. He admits that a lot of what the boys have built can be replicated by anyone. What Kroc really saw, and wanted, was the open, friendly name that seemed to evoke a hopeful America where anything is possible. With fries.
This is powerful stuff.
Growing up in a onetime sleepy suburb of Los Angeles in the 1950s, I was part of a very early wave of post-war babies who felt the full magic and transformational quality of McDonald's. The regular hamburger, which I preferred, was 19 cents. One was not quite enough for a growing boy and two was just too many. Mostly, I went with my older brother Aaron so that we could share the extra burger. This happened about every week or so, usually when my mother had to work late. it was a family thing.
Nowadays I stop into Starbucks from time to time, to grab a double espresso and maybe an egg white and turkey bacon sandwich. It serves the purpose. Recently, I realized that I think, "I'll just stop by McDonald's and grab coffee" when I actually mean Starbucks, and know I mean Starbucks. In my brain McDonald's has become the Kleenex of fast food. I guess it always was.
