According to one unimpeachable source, McDonald's does not own Pret a Manger, although it had a part ownership at one time. Your local McDonald's is probably not owned by McDonald's, either.
One of my favorite artists. I am fortunate to live in a city where his permanent collection is housed which has allowed me to see many of his incredible paintings.
I saw "The Founder" on DVD the other night, and although it's a simplified condensation of how things really worked out for the McDonald brothers, I think it was pretty close to factual in depicting Kroc's fanatical, power-driven personality. An excellent sober-sided history of the whole operation is John F. Love's "McDonald's Behind The Arches," published in the 1990s. It's not a hatchet job by any means, and does give the devil his due in showing how Kroc's monomania helped raised the overall standard for hamburger meat in the US (believe it or not). But it's also uncompromising in demonstrating that Kroc was not, by any means, a nice guy, and that he did, in fact, do the brothers out of what they had coming to them.
The fast-food racket seems to attract such types. Harland Sanders got a similarly raw deal from the suits who bought him out in the 1960s, and spent the rest of his long life cussing them out as only he could. But the suits got the last word by turning the Colonel into a ridiculous caricature/mascot who many people don't even realize was ever a real man.
The fast-food racket seems to attract such types. Harland Sanders got a similarly raw deal from the suits who bought him out in the 1960s, and spent the rest of his long life cussing them out as only he could. But the suits got the last word by turning the Colonel into a ridiculous caricature/mascot who many people don't even realize was ever a real man.