Grinding It Out

The Making of McDonald's

Ray Kroc, Robert Anderson | 4.28 | 4,498 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Aj Joshi, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #24 in Restaurant, Ranked #27 in Tourism — see more rankings.

Grinding It Out is the personal ragtime-to-riches story of Ray Kroc, who at age 52 founded the McDonald's hamburger chain and built it from a single restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, to an international operation with more than $3 billion in annual sales.
Kroc weaves a fast and fascinating tale of the American dream come true. Of days as a piano player and paper cup salesman—of success and failure in the Florida land boom of the Roaring Twenties—of selling Multimixers and becoming chairman of the board of the company feeding more people than any other in the world today.
The plans the were laid and the financial deals that were made by Kroc and his small group of pioneering executives have intrigued businessmen and journalists for years. Now Kroc gives the inside details. He tells about amazing debts he shouldered to push the company ahead, and about the administrative battles that threatened to split the young corporation and how he won them.
Kroc began assembling notes and tape recording his thoughts for Grinding It Out in 1970. He continued slowly for the next five years, working during occasional breaks in a business schedule that still keeps him jetting all over the world. So, when the actual writing began, Kroc was primed with a wealth of anecdotes spun out with an amazing memory for details.
McDonald's has become a wholesome household word in America, but it has been the target of adverse publicity from time to time, too, and Kroc zings his detractors as zestfully as he praises his loyal followers. He explains his 1972 contribution to Richard Nixon's campaign, which he calls a major mistake, but adds, "I mention it only because so many jackasses have brayed about it" and he tells how he became a philanthropist and established the Kroc Foundation.
Whether describing himself dressing down a McDonald's manager for litter on the floor, or berating his San Diego baseball team over a P.A. system before thousands of fellow fans, or celebrating his 70th birthday in a most unusual way, Grinding It Out is basic Krock, candid and compelling.
Robert Anderson is a free-lance writer. A former newspaperman (he was with The Chicago Tribune for fifteen years), he is a regular contributor to national magazines and is editor of The Professional Photographer magazine. less

Buy on Amazon