On December 4, 1953, the very first Burger King opened for business in Jacksonville, Florida. It was the creation of Keith Kramer (or Cramer, depending on the source), and his wife’s uncle Matthew Burns, who decided to go into the restaurant business together. Much like Ray Kroc, the man who grew McDonald’s into the global fast foot juggernaut it now is, Kramer and Burns paid a visit to the enterprising McDonald’s brothers and their revolutionary burger stand in San Bernardino, California. And while Kroc’s story is filled with grand pianos and private jets, these Florida partners hardly found the same luck.
Their business was based on two key principles. The first was a minimal menu, assembly line approach that had been pioneered by the McDonald brothers and promised that success would come by churning out burgers quickly and cheaply. This dovetailed nicely with their second key component: the Insta-Broiler. They licensed the technology for this quick-cooking burger broiler while on that California trip. Its promised 400 burgers per hour production rate was so enticing to the partners and crucial to their model that they named their store “Insta-Burger King,” and when they began selling franchises they mandated that franchisees use this specific broiler.
Two of their franchisees, James McLamore and David Edgerton, would soon prove to be instrumental in growing Insta-Burger King. They bought the franchise rights for the Miami area and by the late 1950’s had grown their branches into thriving restaurants. As it turns out, one of their key advantages was abandoning the Insta-Broiler that Kramer and Burns had insisted on. They found that the dripping fat from the cooking patties disrupted the heating element and diminished the cook quality. They replaced their broiler with a gas grill that not only make the burgers taste better, but also gave the patties distinctive grill marks, a level of burger authenticity none of their competitors had achieved. Their stores were so successful that McLamore and Edgerton bought out the national rights and took over management of Insta-Burger King in 1959.
It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing for the company after the buyout. McLamore and Edgerton immediately dropped “Insta” from the name, and began growing their Burger King franchises outside of Florida. Within a decade, the company found hard times yet again and was bought out by Pillsbury, who later sold the company in the 1980’s. Since its founding in 1953, Burger King has had six different ownership groups and a number of mergers, as well as over 20 different CEO’s at the helm. While McDonald’s has become a global icon of fast food with revenues nearing $20 billion a year, Burger King has limped along, still a nationwide presence, but hardly the giant it could have been. One of the early McDonald’s franchises Ray Kroc started in Des Plaines, Illinois still stands today with classic 1950’s cars parked out front to hearken back to the humble beginnings of the dominant company. Conversely, the original Insta-Burger King location is now a local sandwich shop.