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How the Most Famous Burger in the World Was Created in Pittsburgh
The Big Mac is such an iconic symbol of McDonald’s that it would be easy to assume it’s been on the menu since the fast food chain’s incipience. But this towering burger didn’t actually arrive in a McDonald’s location until 27 years after the restaurant was first founded — and its invention is all thanks to one devoted franchisee, Michael James “Jim” Delligatti.
Delligatti got his first taste of the restaurant business when he returned from fighting in World War II and managed a drive-through restaurant in Newport Beach, California, but his fast food ambitions really took off after attending the National Restaurant Association show — one of the biggest annual gatherings of food service professionals — in Chicago in 1955.
There he met Ray Kroc — a franchise agent for the chain who would go on to buy McDonald's from its founders and become its CEO — and decided to become an early franchisee of the then-15-year-old company. (1955 was the same year that Kroc opened the first McDonald’s east of the Mississippi River.)
Delligatti’s first McDonald’s location opened in western Pennsylvania in 1957, and over the course of the next 25 years he’d go on to open 47 more in the Pittsburgh area. His restaurants faced stiff competition from chains like Big Boy — known for its double-decker-style burgers — and Burger King, prompting Delligatti to realize his customizers might want a bigger burger.
In 1965, Delligatti began pushing the company to let him offer a burger with two beef patties instead of just one, and after two years of reluctance the corporate office gave him approval to test the creation at one of his McDonald’s restaurants in Uniontown, PA.
Thus, the Big Mac made its debut on April 22 in 1967. According to the New York Times, the first newspaper ads for the specialty sandwich described it as a burger with “two freshly ground patties, tangy melted cheese, crisp lettuce, pickle, and our own Special Sauce.” Early printed ads also often included the catch phrase “A meal disguised as a sandwich,” to emphasize the burger’s size.
The new menu offering was a hit at its first location, and just one year later, in 1968, the Big Mac was being sold at McDonald’s restaurants nationwide. After 57 years it’s still here, and has become arguably the menu item most often associated with the Golden Arches.
Jim Delligatti died in November 2016 at 98 years old, with a number of major outlets commemorating his passing through thoughtful obituaries. According to his son, he ate at least one Big Mac each week for most of his long life.
The history of the Big Mac is filled with other interesting facts that any major McDonald’s fan should know. Keep these on hand to show off your burger knowledge at a party, or just to prove your passion for the Big Mac:
The Big Mac almost had a different name
The name “Big Mac” was actually coined by Esther Glickstein Rose, who was a 21-year-old secretary for the advertising department at the company’s Chicago corporate office in 1967. Rose told CBS News in 2014 that her idea was prompted when a product development manager “said ‘I need a name for this new bigger hamburger… He described it to me, and off the top of my head I said, ‘Big Mac.’” The chain gave her a plaque — and a few coupons — to honor her contribution in 1985. (Although McDonald’s credits Rose for the name’s ideation, Jim Delligatti’s family reportedly does not agree with this origin story.)
Before Rose suggested the name that has stuck for over 50 years, McDonald’s was considering calling the sandwich either the “Aristocrat” or “Blue Ribbon Burger,” neither of which feels like it would fit quite as well.
The riskiest part of launching the Big Mac was its price
McDonald’s executives were largely reluctant to embrace Delligatti’s idea for a bigger burger because they worried it would be too expensive for their customer base. When the Big Mac was introduced to roughly a dozen of Jim Delligatti’s restaurants, it was priced at 45 cents, more than twice the cost of a regular hamburger from the restaurant at the time — but ultimately this proved to not be a barrier to sales.
Delligatti introduced another major part of the menu
The Big Mac wasn’t Delligatti’s only lasting contribution to McDonald’s — he was also instrumental in rolling out the chain’s breakfast menu. His restaurants served a pancake and sausage meal to Pennsylvania steelworkers who needed something to eat after clocking out from their overnight shifts.
The Big Mac has become an economic benchmark
In 1986, The Economist unveiled the “Big Mac index,” which acts as a “lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their ‘correct’ level,” per the newspaper. The index uses the price of the Big Mac in different places around the world to demonstrate the difference in consumer purchasing power between countries and whether international currencies are over- or undervalued.
Pennsylvania is home to the official Big Mac Museum
True to the Pittsburg roots of the towering burger, a McDonald’s restaurant in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania — a township on the outskirts of the city — houses the Big Mac museum. While guests wait for their orders, they can check out several exhibits that highlight the sandwich’s history, take photos of a 14-foot-tall Big Mac statue, and whisper a thank you to the life-sized bust of Jim Delligatti.
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