A burger problem in western Pennsylvania
By the mid-1960s McDonald’s was a fast-growing chain with a simple menu: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, shakes and soft drinks. The hamburger sold for around 15 cents. The system depended on speed and uniformity, and the company’s founder in its modern form, Ray Kroc, was strict about keeping the menu small. Franchisees, the independent owners who ran most of the restaurants, were expected to follow the formula.
Jim Delligatti was one of those franchisees. He ran several McDonald’s restaurants in the Pittsburgh area, with the best known in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He believed that some customers wanted a bigger sandwich, particularly at a time when rival chains such as Big Boy were selling double-decker burgers. Delligatti reportedly developed a burger with two beef patties, a middle bun layer, a special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, all on a sesame seed bun.
Getting permission
Making the sandwich was not simply a matter of putting it on the menu. McDonald’s rules restricted franchisees from selling items that the company had not approved. According to the commonly told account, Delligatti had to seek permission to test the product and the company agreed to a limited trial. The details of how long the discussions took vary between retellings, and the story has been told many times by the company, so some of the colour may be polished.
The test took place in 1967 at his Uniontown restaurant. Delligatti priced the sandwich at 45 cents, considerably more than the regular hamburger. The Big Mac sold well, and by most accounts the restaurant’s sales rose noticeably. Delligatti then introduced it to his other restaurants.
Where the name came from
The name “Big Mac” is often credited to a young secretary working for the company’s advertising department in Chicago, who suggested it. The story has been repeated in company histories, but as with other parts of the tale it is better presented as the accepted account than as a document-checked fact. Before the Big Mac, the sandwich had gone by other names or none at all.
From test to national item
After the Pennsylvania trial McDonald’s expanded sales to other regions, and the Big Mac became available across the United States in 1968. That means the sandwich’s creation and first sale belong to 1967, while its nationwide launch belongs to the following year. It was not an overnight sensation across the country in 1967, and it took time for the product to become the chain’s signature item.
The Big Mac worked for the company for several reasons. It gave customers a reason to spend more per visit, which raised the average value of a sale. It allowed McDonald’s to attract adults who might have found the standard hamburger too small. And it used ingredients that the kitchens already stocked, so the extra complexity was manageable. The sandwich also carried a slightly more elaborate preparation, with its three-part bun, which made it distinctive and difficult for competitors to copy exactly.
A franchise success story
The Big Mac is a typical example of how McDonald’s grew. The company had originally been a drive-in restaurant run by Richard and Maurice McDonald in California, and Kroc built it into a national chain by selling franchises and standardising operations. A few of its biggest products came from franchisees rather than headquarters. The Filet-O-Fish, introduced in the early 1960s, is usually credited to a franchisee in Cincinnati who wanted a meatless item for Fridays, and the Big Mac followed a similar path. This shows the tension in the system: the company valued uniformity, but it also benefited from owners who understood local demand.
Fast food in 1967
The sandwich arrived when fast food was spreading with the highway system and suburban growth. More families owned cars, more women were working and households were spending a larger share of income on eating out. Chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken were adding restaurants at a rapid pace. The change was part of a bigger shift in daily life in 1967, in which convenience goods and standardised brands became familiar parts of the American landscape. Menu prices were low, and a meal could cost under a dollar.
A later afterlife
In later years the Big Mac took on a life beyond the restaurant. A famous advertising jingle listing its ingredients appeared in the 1970s, and in 1986 the magazine The Economist began publishing a “Big Mac index”, which compares the price of the sandwich in different countries as an informal guide to exchange rates. The index is a light-hearted illustration of currency values rather than a rigorous measure, but it shows how the product became a global reference point.
Delligatti lived a long life and, according to obituaries, died in 2016 at the age of 98, after decades as a McDonald’s franchisee. He is commonly credited as the sandwich’s inventor, though the company’s own product development and marketing teams also shaped how it was presented and sold nationally.