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McDonald’s Quarter Pounder is arguably the chain’s most iconic sandwich outside of the Big Mac itself. But where did this heavyweight hero come from? And how has it stayed so popular despite being so simple? Most important of all, how many of these culinary wonders to you think you have eaten over the years?
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McDonald's Quarter Pounder is arguably the chain's most iconic sandwich outside of the Big Mac itself
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But where did this heavyweight hero come from? And how has it stayed so popular despite being so simple
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Well, today we're weighing in on the history of the Quarter Pounder
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The Quarter Pounder was originally created by a McDonald's franchisee named Horatio J. Quarter Pounder
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Okay, his name was actually Al Bernardine. Bernardine was a former McDonald's vice president of product development
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But in 1970, he decided to quit his VP gig and buy two of the company's franchises located in Fremont, California
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And it was at those locations that he started tinkering with some new potential menu items, including the quarter pounder
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The name quarter pounder is a reference to the item's pre-cooked weight, which is, wait for it, one quarter of a pound
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The Quarter Pounder made its debut in 1971, and Bernadine originally marketed it with the slogan
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Today Fremont, Tomorrow the World. Back in 1973, McDonald's menu was still fairly limited, so the arrival of the Quarter Pounder
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which at the time cost just 60 cents, was greeted with a good deal of excitement
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The new burger was an instant hit and quickly became one of McDonald's best-selling items
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In fact it was such a big deal it started to change people perception of McDonald It was always a popular spot for lunch but thanks to the Quarter Pounder it increasingly became a family destination for dinner
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The story of the Quarter Pounder is largely one of success, but as always, there were a few hiccups along the way
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For example, McDonald's debuted the Quarter Pounder in Japan in November 2008
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And to mark the occasion, McDonald's of Japan rebranded two Tokyo restaurants as special quarter-pounder restaurants that only sold quarter-pounder meals
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The promotion seemed to have worked wonders when the burger made its debut in the Kansai region a month later
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According to reports, 15,000 people lined up over the course of the day to get one, as many as 2,000 at a time
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But it later came to light that McDonald's had paid at least 1,000 of those people to stand in the line
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The company claimed they were just there for product monitoring purposes, but it still looks like the hamburger equivalent of buying Instagram followers
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If you've been a fan of the Quarter Pounder for a while, then way back in 2018, you might have noticed that they started tasting noticeably better
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Well, that change was not your imagination, and it wasn't because they switched to Soylent Green
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In 2018, McDonald's decided to start making the quarter pounder from 100% fresh beef
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After changing to fresh beef, quarter pounder sales exploded. In just the first three months, McDonald's sold 40 million more quarter pounders than
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they had in the same period from the year before. The chain continues to use fresh meat today
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