Michael james jim delligatti biography examples

A hamburger built of two 1.6oz beef patties, special “Mac” sauce (akin to Thousand Island dressing), iceberg lettuce, American cheese, pickles, and onions, all served on a three-part sesame seed bun, sounds more like a day’s worth of food than a single sandwich. From modest beginnings as an early McDonald’s franchise owner in the 1960s, Jim Delligatti used persistence and innovation to develop the Big Mac, which first sold for 45 cents. The sandwich was originally test-run in a dozen Delligatti McDonald’s stores around Pittsburgh before being added to the national McDonald’s menu in 1968. The Big Mac is now sold internationally and is one of the company’s signature products.

Michael James Delligatti was born in Uniontown, Fayette County in 1918. Delligatti’s father’s job forced the family to move frequently. He never went to college and started his career working for Isaly’s Dairy, a chain of family-owned dairies and restaurants, in the 1950s. By the mid-50s, Delligatti wanted to open his own restaurant and decided to attend a restaurant show in Chicago in 1956. At the show, a McDonald’s booth caught Delligatti’s attention and led to an invitation to a McDonald’s that had just opened in Illinois. Delligatti discovered if he went with McDonald’s, the money he’d save on paper goods purchased through the company would pay for his franchise fee.

In 1957, Jim Delligatti opened his first McDonald’s on McKnight Road in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh. He was one of McDonald’s earliest franchise owners; by the 1960s, he was operating a dozen stores in the Pittsburgh area. Delligatti had an exclusive territorial franchise for metropolitan Pittsburgh but was struggling with sub-par store volumes. He decided that the onl

McDonald's has been around for 61 years, but its most well-known offering, the Big Mac, wasn't even on the menu until more than a decade into the chain's history. It was the creation of Michael James "Jim" Delligatti, a franchise owner in Uniontown, Pa. This week, Delligatti died at 98 at his home in Fox Chapel, Pa.

In 1967, Delligatti had to work to convince the higher-ups that the 45-cent burger was worth the risk. It took only a year for the now-iconic sandwich to land on the restaurant's national menu. Today, it is available in more than 100 countries.

The Golden Arches recently added two new Big Mac options for diners: an even bigger and a slightly smaller burger. These ideas originated at franchise locations in Ohio and Texas.

Read on for ten facts about innovative franchisee Jim Delligatti.

Related:McDonald's to Sell a Bigger Big Mac -- and a Less Big, Big Mac?

10. Delligatti decided to open a McDonald's after meeting founder Ray Kroc at a restaurant trade show in Chicago in 1955.

9.He was the first person to own a McDonald's in western Pennsylvania. He opened his first location in the Pittsburgh suburbs in 1957.

8. During World War II, he served in the army and was stationed in Europe.

7. After the war, he hitchhiked from West Virginia to California, He first got into the restaurant industry by working at drive-ins and managing a Big Boy.

6. Over the course of 25 years, Delligatti opened 48 stores across Pennsylvania.

Related: McDonald's Will Soon Have Self-Serve Kiosks and Mobile Ordering in U.S. Stores

5. For the burger's 40th birthday in 2007, he opened a Big Mac Museum Restaurant in North Huntingdon, Pa. Visitors can see not only a statue of Delligatti, but also the largest Big Mac in the world – a 12- by 14-foot bronze sculpture.

4. Delligatti reportedly never tired of his creation, and he ate one Big Mac every week according to his family.

3. You can thank him for those breakfast sandwiches. He was among the first to serve break

If corporate McDonald’s had had its way 50 years ago, the Big Mac wouldn’t exist – but the dogged determination of a World War II veteran catapulted the sandwich into culinary history, and it’s remained a favorite meal world-wide ever since.

The man behind the Big Mac was a native of Western Pennsylvania named Michael James ‘Jim’ Delligatti, an Army sergeant who’d hitchhiked across the US following the war, eventually working in drive-ins and carhops in California. He returned to his home state and opened a fast-food joint of his own with a business partner in Pittsburgh in 1953; two years later, he fatefully went to a restaurant convention in Chicago where McDonald’s had a booth.

‘He thought he could do better with some costs, so he signed up with them to open a franchise in Western Pennsylvania,’ his son, Michael, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2016 after his father’s death at the age of 98.

Delligatti opened up his first McDonald’s on McKnight Road in Pittsburgh in 1957, and he went on to become a prolific franchisee. Within the next decade, however, he had come to believe that he could build a better sandwich that would boost his profits.

‘He’d opened some restaurants at that point, and he was looking to improve and gain more sales,’ Michael told the newspaper. ‘He wanted to create a larger sandwich that people would really like. He asked McDonald’s and they turned him down several times. Finally, they said OK.’