The Burger King Story – It Was Almost Called Insta-Burger King – Seriously
In 1952, Keith Cramer owned a carhop restaurant in Daytona Beach, FL. He flew to California, on the advice of his stepfather, Matthew Burns, to see the latest innovation in restaurants at the time: McDonald’s.
Cramer was impressed with the speed and automation, and he and Burns purchased the rights to George Read’s Miracle Insta-Machines. These were Rube Goldberg-type devices designed to make fast food really fast. One of the models made multiple shakes while the other, called the Insta-Broiler, could cook twelve burgers simultaneously. Four hundred hamburgers can be cooked in an hour with a single machine.
In 1953, Cramer opened his fast-food burger joint in Jacksonville and named it after the chef: Insta-Burger King.
His burgers sold for 18 cents each (McDonald’s burgers at the time were 15 cents each) and were a huge hit.
Two franchisors, James McLamore and David R. Edgerton, Jr., liked the concept and launched several Insta-Burger King restaurants in Miami in 1954. Fortunately, as you will see, they failed.
So McLamore and Edgerton began to experiment. They soon got rid of the Insta-Broiler and created
a similar flame rotisserie, which made its renowned Burger King famous. They also introduced a much larger burger, the Whopper, of course, and they sold it for 37 cents. This was considered a very risky business move at the time but, as we know, it paid off. It became their flagship product and their catchphrase became “Burger King, Home of the Whopper”.
They soon acquired the Insta-Burger Kings, renaming and refurbishing them for their new products. They began franchising en masse in 1961 and soon their new restaurants were all over Florida and the rest of the nation.
Burger King was the first fast-food burger joint to install indoor eating areas at its outlets, back in 1967, a year before McDonald’s did the same.
Pillsbury acquired the chain in 1967 and began a massive promotional campaign. The slogans and jingles, such as the well-known “Have it Your Way,” were a huge hit, and Burger King grew to become the second-largest hamburger restaurant in the world.
In 2004, Burger King had more than 11,000 outlets in 61 countries and territories around the world, including 7,000 in the United States.