Ray Kroc purchased the McDonald's brothers' company and developed it into a national restaurant brand.
Kroc was a milkshake-mixer salesman who encountered Richard and Maurice McDonald's efficient San Bernardino operation in the 1950s. He became the exclusive franchising agent for the system in 1954 and opened a McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955.
The McDonald brothers created the original production system and restaurant concept, while Kroc drove large-scale franchising, standardization, and national expansion. Kroc did not invent the original restaurant or its Speedee Service System. He acquired the brothers' business in 1961, after the brand had already begun attracting franchisees.