In chapter one, The American Way, of Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is about the increase of fast food drive-in restaurant chains in California and how it was the start of something new during that era. Fast food chains started to rise around early 1940’s. They started off with waitresses that would bring food to the parked cars, they were known as carhops. The drive-in restaurant had become popular to teenage boys who were attracted by the car scene and the young carhops. In 1937 Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a drive-in in Pasadena selling mostly hotdogs. A few years later they opened The McDonald Brothers Burger Bar Drive-In in San Bernardino. By 1948 they closed the restaurant, fired all employees, added larger grills and then reopened with a new strategy of making food. “It was designed to increase the speed, lower the prices, and raise the volume of sales” (Schlosser, 19). This method revolved around no carhops, no dishes and no busboys, everything was designed to be self-service. Entrepreneurs soon visited San Bernardino’s new McDonald’s and made imitations in their hometowns. Dunkin Donuts was created by William Rosenberg in 1948. Glen W. Bell Jr was creator of Taco Bell. Keith G, Cramer built Burger King in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1953. Dave Thomas opened Wendy’s. Thomas S. Monoghan created Dominos. Harland Sanders opened Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952. “The leading fast food chains spread nationwide; between 1960 and 1973, the number of McDonald’s restaurants grew from roughly 250 to 3,000” (Schlosser, 24). The rise of the fast food chains were successful to most but unfortunately not to all. Before all of the drive-ins, the cars, the population, certain areas of California were small towns, crop growing places. The fast food restaurants improved California in to a more modern society.
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