Original subtitles

- 75 McDonald's hamburgers served per second.

4,000 Burger King Whoppers a minute.

Generating more than $22 billion in revenue a year.

- If you asked anybody who was not a native-born American

what the American food is,

they would say, without batting an eye,

the hamburger.

- The two main competitors in the fast food war

have always been McDonald's and Burger King.

- But just 60 years ago,

upstart McDonald's is the only game in town.

But now, a new challenger is gunning for them.

- You wanna beat McDonald's?

You have to think like them.

- Igniting a bitter rivalry.

- If one of my competitors were drowning,

I'd toss 'em an anchor.

- Their battle for supremacy will create

some of the most iconic foods in American history.

- Burger King develops the Whopper.

- That's as good as it gets.

- McDonald's develops the Big Mac sandwich.

- Now we're talking.

- The Whopper or the Big Mac is a question

that I don't think has quite been settled.

- Their innovations transformed

the way Americans eat

and revolutionized fast food around the world.

- Whoa, whoa!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

- It's the 1950s, and a thriving postwar economy

brings employment levels to a record high of over 80%.

With demand for a quick meal on the go soaring,

fast food is one of the country's

fastest growing new industries.

- There was a race going on at the time,

but there were a whole lot of entrepreneurs

who were trying to figure out

the way to take their fast-food business

and replicate it in a number of different places.

- White Castle is growing in the Midwest,

Hardee's in the East, and Dairy Queen in the South.

- So, you had a lot,

a lot of these local regional companies.

You really didn't have any national brands.

- But one fast-food chain

is leading the charge toward McDonald's.

- For basically any company,

McDonald's is the gold standard at this point

because to create something that goes national

is the ultimate dream.

Smaller companies see how they're expanding

and they all want a piece of it.

- The man behind McDonald's growing empire

is a brilliant entrepreneur

who bought out the original founders,

the McDonald brothers, for just $2.7 million.

- Congratulations, gentlemen.

The American people will never forget the name McDonald's.

- A cunning visionary named Ray Kroc.

- I think it's kind of amazing

that two brothers lost their own name and the Speedee System

to a man with the last name of Kroc.

He then takes this notion of same taste all the time

and applies it nationwide.

- He understood that you need a small menu.

You need a menu based on seven items that you can put out,

many with the same ingredients,

at a fast pace, and you streamline it.

- Starting in 1955,

Kroc opens 34 locations in just three years

across the Midwest, using McDonald's Speedee System.

- That Speedee System let them mass produce good food

in a very quick way.

People were waiting just so they can see,

"Oh my gosh, I can get a hamburger

in a matter of moments?"

- But most important to Kroc

is replicating the McDonald's experience perfectly

at every restaurant.

- Fast food is all about consistency.

And in order to create a consistent product

for all its consumers, you need a strong culture of training

committed to quality, service, and value.

- Ray Kroc doesn't want anyone

who's gonna veer from the franchise script

that he's meticulously created.

- To make sure every location is up to standards,

Ray Kroc crisscrosses the country himself,

conducting random inspections.

- Get over here!

Get over here.

What the hell is this?!

Enchiladas?!

Burritos?!

McDonald's menu is supposed to be the same everywhere;

the whole point of the concept!

Get this stuff off the board, now!

- Ray Kroc was driven.

He was not what anyone would call

a really warm and cuddly guy.

He had very high standards and he could be almost cruel

to people who didn't live up to what he expected.

- Christ's sake.

- Ray Kroc definitely wrote the playbook

on expanding restaurants, especially restaurant chains.

I think a lot of restaurants emulate

what he and his company did

to take that one store to many locations.

- Kroc oversees his growing empire

with an iron fist.

And by 1959, he opens his 100th restaurant.

And despite a slew of imitators,

there's no real challenger to McDonald's, for now.

In one of the few states that McDonald's hasn't yet reached,

an ambitious former restaurant worker

is looking to forge his own path in fast food.

His name is Dave Edgerton,

and he's just poured his life savings

into buying two little-known burger joints

call Insta Burger King.

- David Edgerton bought Insta Burger

from the original founders, the Kramers and Burns,

who had been inspired when they had gone to a McDonald's

out in California.

- Dave Edgerton is this ultimate tinkerer

in that American sense.

He's the kinda guy who's obsessed

with assembly lines and speed,

and he fed into the tech fascination at the time.

- After a year in business,

Edgerton is struggling to stay afloat

and he's looking for investors

to inject much-needed capital.

- So, that's where the customers place their order.

Sometimes the line snakes all the way back that way,

but it moves quick.

- Guess sometimes not, huh?

- One potential fit is a shrewd Cornell graduate

with dreams of becoming the James McLamore.

- James McLamore was, without question,

the guy with the business savvy.

He was a restaurateur and he was deeply entrepreneurial.

- We have got everything down to a science.

Drinks take four seconds, shakes take about six.

- And fries? - They cook in batches

on two-minute cycles.

- McLamore looks up to Ray Kroc

and it influences everything he does.

McDonald's didn't exist yet in Florida.

- This...

This is our secret weapon.

The world's first fully-automated

burger-making machine.

- Huh. - Mm-hmm.

- Called the Insta-Broiler,

Edgerton's answer to the Speedee System

can churn out 100 more burgers an hour

than a team of McDonald's employees.

A chain drive moves the hamburger patties

through a broiler.

A second level toasts buns and even adds sauces

before the burgers are assembled and served.

- She can cook 400 burgers in an hour,

and that's something you're not gonna find anywhere else;

not at White Castle, not at the local dives,

not even at McDonald's.

We're making a 28% profit on every sale.

- Before he agrees to invest,

McLamore combs through Insta Burger King's finances

for the last year.

- How much did you say you were making in profit?

- About 28% on sales.

That's just an estimate.

- I'm showing a 56% loss, per order.

- What?

No, that can't be right.

- These sales figures, I mean, it's a hundred orders a day?

That's nothing; that's...

Bad.

- Yeah, Insta Broiler can make that many burgers

in about 15 minutes.

- No, it's not the concept; it's a good concept.

Just, I think it's the market.

People aren't used to this,

you know, fast-serve kinda place.

You know, getting outta their car to order,

paying before they eat.

- It'll catch on.

- Yeah, but not before you're outta business.

No.

If I'm gonna do this, we'll need more locations.

- More locations?

But you just said this location isn't even making any money.

- No, exactly.

Because people don't know what it is.

But they will if there's more of 'em.

Look, you wanna beat McDonald's?

You have to think like them.

- I think it's a little crazy

that McLamore was trying to open more franchises

before the first one was flourishing.

I doubt there is a restaurateur in the 21st century

that would do that.

- But McLamore wants to build something that's

bigger and bolder, brasher, enormous than McDonald's.

- Welcome to Insta Burger.

- McLamore invests his entire life savings

of $20,000 into his new strategy of expansion.

- Love it, I love it.

- And he and Edgerton take out

tens of thousands more in loans.

- Having one store is one thing.

But when you're opening multiple locations,

that takes a lotta capital.

You're really just using your own sales,

putting everything back into the business.

I think you have to be a little insane to do that.

But insanity is not necessarily a bad thing.

- Over the next four years,

they open five new Insta Burger Kings in Florida,

bringing their total to seven.

But their gamble isn't paying off,

and sales at every location are dismal.

- Hey, is anybody paying attention here?

This is raw!

Hey, who's spot-checking these?

No one?

Oh, oh, you have gotta be kidding me.

Ow!

Dammit, agh!

- What's going on?

This thing crap out again?

- The problem with the Insta Broiler

was that it broke down too often.

When you are building a concept

that's all centered on speed, it has to work

or else the line backs up and the concept fails.

The fact that the Insta Broiler was something

that kept breaking down over and over again,

it's like a ticking clock.

- Whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa, hey!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

- By the late-1950s, fueled by the baby boom,

the American population explodes, with annual birthrates

surging past a record four million a year.

- People get married, they're starting families.

There's this huge increase in our population

and the economy is doing well.

- The boom, for Americans, is going to be revolutionary

in a very different way.

You'll see the explosion of a number of entrepreneurs

and businesspersons bringing items to market

which aren't necessarily staples or essentials,

but will have high demand just the same.

- In the Southeast,

job growth has transformed Florida

from the South's least populous state

to one of the most inhabited in the country,

with a population of over three million.

And a booming tourism industry

draws an additional four million visitors a year.

Jim McLamore and Dave Edgerton hope to seize the opportunity

and dominate Florida before McDonald's

can move into the state,

but their vaunted Insta Broiler has failed them.

- Rather than just walk away or fix it,

Edgerton took a hatchet

and he sunk it right into the Insta Broiler.

That's a huge moment, where you acknowledge

that something is fundamentally broken in your business.

- Edgerton and McLamore resort to closing down

all seven of their Insta Burger King locations

until they can fix the problem.

Edgerton works to simplify the design

and maximize reliability without sacrificing capacity.

- He actually built a conveyor-belt grill,

so deeply efficient, could grill the burgers

and quite literally move them down

and keep the service speedy.

- She can even broil patties.

- A jet of flame gives it a kiss

of fresh-off-the-grill flavor,

so Edgerton names it the flame-broiler.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- The flame-broiler gives Burger King this edge

in a lot of ways

because McDonald's burgers are made on flat griddles.

They don't taste like something that has flame behind it.

The flame-broiler has this backyard taste.

- Armed with their new flame-broiler,

Edgerton and McLamore reopen their seven restaurants,

unleashing a weapon that will soon

start a war with McDonald's.

In Chicago, Ray Kroc works relentlessly

to dominate the fast-food market

by creating the same customer experience

at every one of his 100 restaurants

spread across the country.

- Louie, talk to me.

Don't give me that.

Look, all I'm hearing is excuses from you.

- And while he standardized the menu,

ingredients still vary wildly from region to region.

- Yeah; no, it's not our fryers.

It's the potatoes.

That's what I thought.

- In 1960, McDonald's uses a staggering

175 varieties of potato,

with local farmers supplying

almost exclusively for local markets.

- A potato in California and a potato in Idaho

will inherently not taste the same.

- So, what Ray Kroc had to do was choose potatoes

that would track and would scale

in all different corners of the country

where McDonald's was coming up.

- Kroc inspects some of his bestselling fries

from across the country.

- This is it.

- In an unprecedented move,

Ray Kroc chooses one potato, the Idaho russet,

to make all of McDonald's french fries.

- Buying potatoes from the same place

so all the potatoes taste the same.

You help create that one flavor profile

that makes McDonald's something familiar.

It's sort of like America's neighborhood restaurant,

and I think therein lay Ray Kroc's genius.

- And Kroc's demand for uniformity

goes beyond the flavor alone.

- McDonald's wants a certain size french fry.

Ray Kroc helped first develop french fries

that were .28 inches over and over again.

Don't mess with the McDonald's details.

- Most Idaho potatoes are harvested

between September and October.

- This is the actual freezing facility.

Generator's gonna be over here.

- To supply his franchises year-round,

Kroc commissions a $3-million flash-freezing warehouse

and orders six million pounds of Idaho potatoes,

almost single-handedly transforming

the way they're farmed.

- Ray Kroc wanted all the potatoes

to come from one vendor.

So, instead of what was fresh on the farm

dictating what you served on the menu,

now what you served on the menu

dictated what you grew and raised on your farm.

Kroc actually controlled

what came outta the ground at origin,

and it was really the beginning

of what we now refer to as factory farming.

- By the early-1960s, McDonald's grows to over 300 locations

and Ray Kroc rolls out uniform french fries

in every single one of them.

- The McDonald's fries are so iconic

because they have scaled to a huge proportion.

- Not only is it hot and tasty,

a little extra salt on it,

but it's the same thing you get wherever you go.

You can rely on those french fries from McDonald's.

- McDonald's is now a national juggernaut,

with franchises in every state.

Meanwhile, Dave Edgerton and Jim McLamore

have reopened their seven Insta Burger King locations,

each equipped with their new flame-broiler.

But with McDonald's now operating in Florida,

it's even harder for Insta Burger King to draw customers

and they're bleeding money.

- Lunch break.

Picked these up at a little nothin' spot along the highway.

You shoulda seen the line at this place.

- Uh-huh, I'll get to it later.

- Just look at it.

- My god, there must be

a quarter-pound of beef on this.

- I know.

- Imagine what we can do with something like this.

- So, for Edgerton and McLamore,

to create an item that could compete with McDonald's

is the ultimate challenge.

It's the ultimate possibility.

- McLamore and Edgerton

immediately begin working on a bigger burger

they can cook with their flame-broiler,

allowing them to stand out from the competition.

- In the 1950s, they were used to a smaller burger

than we would consider today.

Whether it's the White Castle slider

or the McDonald's burger, it was pretty modest in size.

- All right, so what do you think?

One patty, two patties?

- Hey, I think it's gotta be one

or the price is gonna be higher than people wanna pay.

Nah, get rid of that, it's not big enough.

Try...

- Let's go- - We gotta go

much, much bigger bun,

like this right here. - There we go.

- So, let's try a little crunch.

- Edgerton and McLamore experiment

by adding different toppings to their bigger patty.

- It's almost there.

- What if we put a layer of mayo

right on the bottom? - Yeah, perfect; perfect.

- Until they hit the perfect combination.

- They used a bigger piece of meat,

had a lot of lettuce, it had the tomato, it had the pickle.

It was a much bigger hamburger

than had ever been sold before in a fast-food restaurant.

- And to make their new creation

even more unique, they make the groundbreaking decision

to give their burger a name.

- Back then, burgers didn't have their own special name.

It was new.

- McLamore and Edgerton introduce

the first signature burger in fast-food history.

It's called the Whopper.

- The Whopper was deeply revolutionary

'cause it was the first large burger

with fixings from a franchise.

People were getting a bigger meal,

a meal that tasted like it came off their barbecue.

And for Insta Burger King,

it could be an immediately recognizable product

that would put them on the map.

- Edgerton and McLamore finally have a weapon

that McDonald's doesn't,

and they're ready to make a name for themselves.

- Dave Edgerton and JJim McLamore have spent years

trying to put Insta Burger King on the map.

- Hey, I got six Whoppers all day that just got ordered.

- Six.

- And with the launch of their new

revolutionary flame-broiled Whopper

in all seven of their Florida locations-

- I mean, look at this line!

- Sales are up 40% within weeks.

- Keep it up!

- When the Whopper's introduced,

very quickly, it becomes insanely popular.

It takes off.

- Insta Burger King was talking about their restaurant

as a place for people with big appetites,

a place where you can get something like the Whopper

that takes two hands to eat.

- And after years of operating

under they name they inherited,

Edgerton and McLamore decide to make a pivotal change

to something shorter and punchier.

- They wanna brand themselves

as the best that there possibly is.

It's different from just being fast.

It's being best.

- Their new name is Burger King,

and the dub themselves the "Home of the Whopper."

- Compared to Burger King,

Insta Burger King is um, is a stupid name.

It's a bad name.

And I'm glad they changed it, for them if nothing else.

Driven by the Whopper's resounding success,

McLamore and Edgerton begin to expand further,

with dreams of becoming a national chain.

- 'Cause all the traffic basically flows from

southwest up- - Yeah, I think you're right.

That's our money spot.

- They identify key cities to target,

including Wilmington, Delaware, New Orleans, and Chicago.

But before staking a claim in the Windy City,

McLamore makes an unscheduled pit stop.

- Can I help you?

- Hi.

I'm looking for Ray Kroc.

- Is he expecting you?

- No, I don't think so.

- What's your name?

- Jim McLamore.

- Jim!

Hey!

Remind me, how do we know each other?

- We don't, actually.

I own and operate a small number of burger joints

outta Miami.

- The competition, huh?

- Well, no, not yet.

But I'd be lyin' if I said that wasn't the dream.

- In any good mythology,

there is a meeting of mortal enemies,

and that exists in American fast food.

McLamore wanted exactly what Kroc had.

- Say, listen, you got any advice

for an aspiring franchiser?

- Well, if you work just for money, you'll never make it.

But love what you do and always put the customer first,

you'll be just fine. - Oh, come on.

I mean, don't give me the fairytale version.

- All right.

It's a dog-eat-dog world.

Someone's always trying to cut you down.

I've crushed everyone that's ever come for me.

It's called survival of the fittest, Jim.

If one of my competitors were drowning,

I'd toss 'em an anchor.

Would you?

That's what it'll take to succeed in this business.

Been nice meeting you.

Oh, what was the name of your chain again?

- Burger King.

- Best of luck, pal.

- More determined than ever

to compete with McDonald's,

McLamore spearheads an aggressive expansion campaign.

- I had one other, I had one other thought, right?

Because-

- And by 1962,

just eight years after opening, the Home of the Whopper

is in 23 different cities across the country.

Within the next year, their profits more than double,

soaring to over $150,000,

the modern-day equivalent of $1.2 million.

And McLamore and Edgerton decide to innovate further,

television advertising.

- Television is this gigantic leap in food advertising.

Before this, all you could see is perhaps a drawing

or a photograph as an ad.

All of a sudden, you could actually see someone

take a bite of the product.

- Burger King becomes the first company ever

to air a commercial for a signature sandwich

on national television,

taking aim at every competitor

that doesn't have a trademark burger, including McDonald's.

- Burger King was very bold and very aggressive.

And in fact, Burger King was one of the first

fast-food restaurants to actually call out a competitor

by name in its commercials.

- Burger King's sales explode.

And in 1964, profits rise by over 50%

across all 72 of their locations.

- The Whopper, the wall-to-wall hamburger,

so big that just one is a whole meal.

- And the extraordinary rate

of their growth has caught Ray Kroc's eye.

♪ The bigger the burger, the better the burger ♪

♪ The burgers are bigger at Burger King ♪

- And he's about to strike back.

- For years, Ray Kroc's McDonald's

has dominated the competition,

building an empire 400 locations strong,

worth the modern equivalent of $8 billion.

Now, Burger King has launched an all-out assault

with their groundbreaking signature burger, the Whopper.

- I think the Whopper shocked Ray Kroc.

They were bigger.

They were a noticeably thicker sandwich.

And when you compared what McDonald's was selling,

which was this pretty small hamburger, to a Whopper,

you really noticed it.

- The Whopper had the name recognition.

It was distinct to Burger King and it was delicious.

People loved that flame-broiled taste.

- All right, come on, let's go.

Meeting started five minutes ago.

Come on, guys.

- To maintain their stranglehold on the market,

McDonald's needs a way to fight back.

- What we need is a signature product.

Burger King has the Whopper.

McDonald's is home of the what?

Let's reach out to our franchise operators

and see what they come up with.

- I think that a brand like Burger King

keeps a brand like McDonald's on their toes

because having that kinda competition from Burger King

is what forces McDonald's to innovate,

forces them to think outside the box.

- Meeting's over, get to work.

- Great, keep it up.

Keep it up!

- In Miami, Edgerton and McLamore

invest all their profits into rapid expansion,

even taking out loans to speed up the process.

And by 1965, they have over 120 locations,

with the same rate of growth as McDonald's.

- What about regional ad spend?

We can certainly trim from there.

- I don't wanna touch marketing.

- Maybe we raise franchise fees;

nothing huge, just some. - Absolutely not.

No, growth is too important.

I won't risk it.

- When we're thinking about expansion,

it's never really about,

"How much money did we make this year?"

It's really more about,

"Well, where do people want us right now?"

But as a business, you always have to care

about your bottom line.

- Jim McLamore, he had overextended them

by opening too many franchises.

- I mean, we gotta keep feeding the machine!

- For how long?

- I mean, for as long as it takes!

Look, we can't lose momentum.

Trust me on this.

- Burger King being the largest threat in the burger land

is the only brand that could really compete

with McDonald's supremacy.

- Even though the company

is growing by leaps and bounds,

they're barely keeping pace with their considerable debt.

- Hello?

You're speaking to him.

Sure.

We'd be open to hearing a proposal.

- Who's that?

- Absolutely.

That was a guy from Pillsbury.

- And?

- They wanna make us an offer.

I think they wanna buy us.

- It's 1966,

and after nearly a decade of relentless growth

and compounding debt, Jim McLamore and Dave Edgerton

receive an offer from massive food conglomerate Pillsbury

to buy Burger King outright,

leaving the future of the company in doubt.

- We're not seriously considering this.

It's too soon.

- This wipes our debt.

Guarantees our cashflow.

- The offer is $18 million,

the equivalent of over $140 million today.

- This is how we beat McDonald's,

with Pillsbury's backing,

with their deep pockets.

We keep expanding, but they take on all the risk.

- Burger King could use the influx of cash

and the broad range of the Pillsbury brand

to allow them to compete against the much-larger juggernaut

of Ray Kroc's McDonald's.

- I don't trust them.

- We need the money.

- McLamore would give up control of his baby

to compete with McDonald's,

but Edgerton was a little more suspicious

of what would happen to Burger King

when Pillsbury got into the game.

- McLamore knows this deal could be

his last shot to overtake McDonald's.

But right now, Ray Kroc is traveling the country,

looking for a new weapon of his own.

He's meeting with his franchisees,

hoping that one of them has a new product

that could top the Whopper.

- Ray Kroc would exert real quality control

and make sure that menu items are uniform

from one location of McDonald's to the next.

So, it's kind of crazy that now McDonald's

was allowing menu diversification

and trying to beat Burger King with the next big thing.

- Kroc finds himself in an Ohio town,

meeting with a franchisee who has one solitary location.

- Here's what I've been tinkering with.

It's a filet of cod, breaded and fried,

with a dollop of homemade tartar sauce.

- Lou Groen's store is located

in Monfort Heights, Cincinnati, which is 87% Catholic.

And on Fridays, Catholics at that time didn't eat beef,

so he would see his sales routinely drop

every single week.

So, he reached out to Ray Kroc and said,

"I have this idea for a fish sandwich."

- Cheese on fish?

- Yeah, you're right.

Now we're talking.

- Fish was already a frozen product

that was easily available,

so they're able to provide a lightly-breaded fish filet

on a roll that would be already developed and ready to sell.

- Ray Kroc rolls out the Filet-O-Fish nationwide.

- Let the fish that catches people catch you!

- But it's still not enough

to compete with the Whopper.

- Part of the menu expansion that Kroc is undertaking

is trying to find something that is a signature item.

And he's finding all of these different smaller options

that kind of have their own iconic nature

but don't hold a candle to the Whopper,

which is its own holy grail of burgers.

- In Miami,

after agonizing over Pillsbury's buyout offer,

McLamore has convinced Edgerton to unite with him.

They accept a deal valued at the modern equivalent

of more than $140 million.

- Pleasure doing business with ya.

- At that point, Edgerton steps outta the picture.

He cashes out.

McLamore, he's now part of Pillsbury,

and he remains faithfully devoted

to the idea of Burger King becoming huge

and hoping that Pillsbury will make it happen.

- Pleasure doing business with you.

Thank you, sir.

- But far from Miami or Chicago,

in a small town in Pennsylvania,

a McDonald's franchise owner is working on something new.

And it's about to blow the burger wars wide open.

- It's 1967, and Ray Kroc's decade-long hunt

for a signature burger to pit against the Whopper is over.

- From franchise owner Jim Delligatti

out of Uniontown, Pennsylvania,

consisting entirely of ingredients already found

in every McDonald's

slice of cheddar-blend cheese, crispy iceberg lettuce,

little secret sauce, crunchy dill pickle,

toasted club slice, and not one but two hamburger patties

under a lightly-toasted sesame seed crown.

- And now, all it needs is a name.

- I call it the Aristocrat.

Or perhaps the Blue Ribbon Burger.

What?

- It's a bit...

- It's a bit what?

- Ray Kroc wanted it to be called the Blue Ribbon Burger,

which speaks to his own ego a little bit,

but also to the fact that he wanted a really great burger

to compete with the Whopper.

- How about the Big Mac?

- Someone just earned a raise.

- The soon-to-be-legendary Big Mac

gets its name from a 21-year-old secretary

named Esther Glickstein.

In 1967, armed with his new weapon,

Ray Kroc unleashes an unparalleled assault

on Burger King.

He introduces the Big Mac at all 800-plus locations

and launches one of the most aggressive ad campaigns

in company history.

- The creation of the Big Mac

is like throwing a match into a flame-broiled tinderbox

and the whole thing explodes.

- They were really spending a lot of money

on competitive advertising.

Those ads were everywhere.

The idea behind the Big Mac

was to counter the size of the Whopper.

There was a fun commercial that listed the ingredients.

- Two all-beef patties, special sauce,

lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

- Big Mac. - And people loved it.

- I always appreciated the flavor of the burger

in the Whopper, but I always felt the Big Mac

had the toppings game down better.

It was like a much more pleasurable bite through.

- The Burger King Whopper had a bigger patty,

but McDonald's gave you two.

So, by keeping the patties the same size,

they were able to stay within their framework

and still compete with the Whopper.

- Within a year, the Big Mac accounts for 19%

of all McDonald's sales, reaching over $400 million,

an unprecedented attack on the Whopper's dominance.

- Jim McLamore is desperate to counter McDonald's offensive,

but he's now under Pillsbury's management,

and they're not interested in a costly battle.

- When Burger King made the deal with Pillsbury,

in their perspective, they thought that they would have

financial resources to draw from.

- But Burger King is one column in their ledger,

and so he's now part of a corporate structure

that he no longer calls all the shots.

And all of McLamore's hopes for expansion

and rapid growth hit a snag.

McLamore's obviously crushed.

- While McLamore's hands are tied,

McDonald's triples their rate of expansion,

leaving Burger King in the dust.

- In the 1970s, McLamore slowly begins to realize

that his plans for world domination are gonna be stifled.

And he reaches this moment where he says to himself,

"Maybe it's time for me to finally step away."

And so, he steps away.

- Though their battle with Burger King

will rage on for decades,

Ray Kroc's legacy has made McDonald's

the largest burger joint in the world.

- But these are ongoing rivalries

that you see lasting for years.

- Today, there are over 36,000

McDonald's restaurants worldwide.

Burger King has over 18,000.

- McDonald's has often set the tone

and the pace of the fast-food industry.

They were one of the first national brands

to show that they could be successful overseas.

Brands like Burger King followed suit.

- Burger King's sales

are over $76 million per year,

a fraction of McDonald's $100 billion annual sales.

- McDonald's is number one and Burger King is number two,

but I love Burger King because they set the table

for American fast food to become truly iconic.

And on that table, there weren't utensils,

there weren't plates, there was just an enormous hamburger,

and that's all you needed.