"The 1950s can be viewed as a time that heralded the franchised restaurant model that is still visible in america today."
What is a franchise?
A franchise is a certain company that sells people the same product in different locations. The fast food industry was the most successful out of all of the franchises. Below are some well-known restaurants that became to be in the 1950s.
Mcdonald's
"McDonald's was one of the first restaurants to become widely franchised in the United States. Though it opened in the 1940s in California, Ray Kroc, a milkshake mixer salesman, gained permission from the McDonald brothers to franchise the restaurant outside of California in 1954. In just four years, the restaurant had sold over 100 million hamburgers."
Dunkin' donuts
"Dunkin' Donuts, which is now the world's largest coffee and baked goods chain restaurant, was founded in 1950 by Bill Rosenberg in Quincy, Massachusetts. Four years later, he owned a total of five Dunkin' Donuts in Massachusetts and in 1955, the company licensed the first Dunkin' Donuts. At the end of the '50s, Bill Rosenberg founded the International Franchise Association, which as of 2010 included over 800 franchisors and 30,000 franchisee members, which accounts for more than 50 percent of all retail business in the United States."
Kentucky Fried Chicken
"While founder Colonel Harlan Sanders opened his original restaurant, The Sanders Court & Café in 1930, he did not actively franchise what would come to be named Kentucky Fried Chicken until 1952. Colonel Sanders awarded the first franchise to Salt Lake City's Pete Harman, who agreed to pay Colonel Sanders five cents for every piece of chicken sold." In 2010, there are Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in over 80 countries.
pizza hut
"In 1958, in a small university town in Wichita, Kansas, two brothers, Dan and Frank Carny borrowed $600 from their mother and opened the first Pizza Hut. By the end of the decade the first franchised Pizza Hut opened in Topeka, Kansas, and within 12 years over 1,000 Pizza Huts opened throughout the United States." In 2010, Pizza Hut was considered to be the biggest pizza franchise in the world.
Adds from the 1950s:
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