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McDonald's is a real estate business. 麦当劳是一家房地产企业。
That might sound surprising: After all, who hasn't at least once in their lifetime indulged in the glorious experience that is a Happy Meal? 这可能听起来很奇怪：毕竟，谁一生中没有至少一次沉迷于开心乐园餐的光荣体验？
You might know McDonald's as that fast food chain that sells hamburgers and fries, but trust me, it goes way deeper than that. 你可能会知道，麦当劳是卖汉堡和薯条的快餐连锁店，但相信我，它比这复杂得多。
That's why, this week on Behind the Business we'll be looking at the world's second-largest restaurant chain, McDonald's. 这就是为什么，本周的节目中，我们将会看到世界第二大餐饮连锁企业麦当劳。
Few things sound as Irish as the name McDonald. 很少有英文名字听起来会像爱尔兰语的，但麦当劳就是。
It's an interesting name: the 'mac' part means son, while Donald comes from a Gaelic name that means 'Ruler of the World'. 这是一个有趣的名字：'mac'这部分是指儿子，而Donald来自一个盖尔语的名字，意思是'世界统治者'。
Very ominous, right? 有种不祥的预感对吧……
The two 'world-rulers' that we're interested in are Richard and Maurice McDonald, two brothers from New Hampshire. 我们感兴趣的两个'世界统治者'是来自新罕布什尔州的两个兄弟，Richard和Maurice McDonald。
In the 1920s they moved to California, where they started a movie theater and a hotdog stand, but they eventually went bust when the Great Depression came around. 在上世纪20年代，他们搬到了加利福尼亚州，在那里他们开了一个电影院和热狗站，但是他们最终都在大萧条时期破产了。
Their first big success came in 1940, when they opened a barbecue joint in San Bernardino. 他们第一个大成功出现在1940年，开在圣贝尔纳迪诺的一个烧烤会。
Now at the time, virtually all restaurants were mom-and-pop establishments, with their own unique taste and cooking methods. 在那时，当时几乎所有的餐厅都是家庭经营的，有自己独特的口味和烹饪方法。
Drive-ins with roller skating waitresses were all the rage back then, but they weren't particularly efficient. 随着轮滑女服务员的推动，速度快了一些，但是她们效率并不高。
You had to wait half an hour to get your order, and half of the time they got it wrong. 你不得不等待半小时才能点单，而且一半的时间他们都搞错了。
The McDonald's barbecue was no different, and although it did turn a profit, the brothers knew they could do better. 麦当劳烧烤没有什么不同，虽然确实有利可图，但兄弟们知道他们可以做得更好。
They realized that most of their income was coming from just three products: hamburgers, french fries, and coke, and after running the place for 8 years, the brothers decided to make a radical makeover. 他们意识到，他们大部分的收入来自三种产品：汉堡包，炸薯条和可乐，经过8年的运营，兄弟们决定彻底改造。
They dropped most of their menu to focus on their best sellers, and then they redesigned the entire kitchen around that. 他们把大部分菜单都放在了自己的畅销书上，然后重新设计了整个厨房。
The cooking process started to look like an assembly line, which allowed the brothers to fill customer orders in as little as 30 seconds. 烹饪过程开始看起来像一条流水线，这也让兄弟们能在短短30秒内点好单。
They abandoned the drive-in concept in favor of a walk-up counter, and they stopped using cutlery and dishes entirely, replacing them with disposable paper packaging. 他们放弃了免下车理念，改成一个步行进入的柜台，他们用一次性纸包装取代了餐具。
In an instant, their restaurant became a sensation, drawing in attention from across the country. 一瞬间，他们的餐厅就轰动全国，得到了各地的关注。
One of the people they attracted was this guy, Ray Kroc. 其中有一个被他们吸引而来的人，就是Ray Kroc。
He was a natural-born hustler, who at the age of 15 had lied his way into serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver during WW1. 他是一个天生骗子，曾经在一战期间，15岁的他装成了红十字会的救护车司机。
Interestingly enough, he served alongside Walt Disney in France, but they didn't really keep in touch after the war. 有趣的是，他在法国与沃尔特迪斯尼一起服役，但在战后他们并没有真正保持联系。
Like most people from the postwar years Ray had worked dozens of jobs: jazz pianist, radio DJ, paper cup salesman, you name it. 像大多数战后的人一样，Ray曾经换过12个工作：爵士钢琴家，电台DJ，还有你们说的纸杯推销员。
In the early 1950s he was travelling cross-country trying to sell expensive milkshake machines, but he wasn't really doing a good job at it. 上世纪50年代初，他正在越野旅行，试图出售昂贵的奶昔机，但他并没有做得很好。
One day in 1954, however, he got an order for 8 of them, and it was from none other than the McDonald brothers. 然而，在1954年的某一天，他一下子得到了八台机器的订单，买家不是别人，正式麦当劳兄弟。
When Ray made his way to San Bernardino, he fell in love with their restaurant and immediately offered to franchise it. 当Ray前往圣贝尔纳迪诺时，他爱上了他们的餐厅，并立即提出要加盟。
By that point the McDonald brothers had already opened over 20 franchise locations, but none of they were doing as well as the original restaurant: 那时，麦当劳兄弟已经有了20多个加盟商，但没有一个像总店一样：
The lack of oversight made maintaining quality impossible. 缺乏监督使得维持质量成为不可能。
The brothers decided to give Ray a shot, and boy did he deliver. 兄弟们决定给Ray一次机会，而他也确实做到了。
He handpicked only the best franchisees and ran his operations like an army drill. 他只挑选最好的加盟商，像军事演习一样经营。
In the span of just 6 years Ray built 100 McDonald's restaurants, while the McDonald brothers were basically managing their own joint. 在短短6年的时间里，Ray就建立了100家麦当劳餐厅，而麦当劳兄弟基本上还是在管理自己的那部分。
Ray eventually grew tired of them: they'd reap 0.5% of all sales for doing nothing while roadblocking Ray's suggestions for improving the franchise. Ray最终厌倦了他们：他们什么都没干，却拿了所有销售额的0.5％，反而还阻拦了Ray对加盟商的改善建议。
To cut them out, Ray figured out a brilliant strategy. 为了把他们踢出去，Ray想了个很好的策略。
He'd buy the land all future restaurants would be built upon, and then he'd lease it to his franchisees. 他把所有未来会建餐馆的地都买下，然后租给他的加盟商。
This way Ray got to keep almost all of the profits from the business, while leaving the McDonald brothers empty handed. 这样Ray就能保持几乎所有的业务利润，同时让麦当劳兄弟空手而归。
Of course, the brothers weren't very happy at that, but there wasn't anything they could do, and in 1961 they finally agreed to sell their franchise to Ray for $2.7 million. 当然，兄弟们并不是非常高兴，但是他们也无可奈何，于是在1961年，他们终于同意以270万美元的价格把他们的专营权卖给了Ray。
With the brothers out of the way, Ray stepped on the accelerator, implementing all the changes he had wanted like redoing the logo and creating a mascot. 随着兄弟们的离去，Ray加大步伐，实施了他想要的所有改变，例如重做标志，并创造了吉祥物。
He also expanded the menu, adding the Filet-O-Fish in 1965 and the Big Mac in 1968. 他还扩大了菜单，在1965年添加了麦香鱼，1968年加了巨无霸。
That same year Ray celebrated opening store #1000, and adopted the modern iteration of the golden arches logo. 同年，Ray庆祝开业第1000家店，采用了现代化的金拱标志。
Throughout the next decades McDonald's would keep expanding, and not just in the US. 在接下来的几年中，麦当劳不断扩大，不仅仅在美国。
They pioneered breakfast fast food with the introduction of the Egg McMuffin in 1972. 他们在1972年推出了烟肉蛋松饼，开创了早餐快餐。
They also added stuff like Chicken McNuggets and the Happy Meal, which would eventually make them the world's largest toy distributor. 他们还添加了一些像麦乐鸡和开心乐园餐这样的东西，最终成为世界上最大的玩具经销商。
By 1988 they had 10,000 restaurants, and although Ray was no longer alive, the company kept on growing without him. 到1988年，他们有10,000家餐馆，虽然Ray已经不在了，可公司一直在增长着。
Thanks to their iconic Hamburger University, the McDonald's franchise had some of the best-trained managers in the fast food industry. 由于他们标志性的汉堡大学，麦当劳的加盟商在快餐行业拥有一些训练有素的经理人员。
This allowed them stay one step ahead of competitors like Burger King and Wendy's. 这让他们比竞争对手汉堡王和Wendy's更领先一步。
Since then, McDonald's have continued expanding their menu into what we know today. 此后，麦当劳继续将菜单扩展到我们今天所知道的菜单的模样。
In 2006 the franchise underwent its first major redesign since the 1970s, adopting the so-called 'Forever Young' design, which features dining zones with comfortable sofas and armchairs. 2006年，加盟商经历了自20世纪70年代以来的首次重新设计，采用了所谓的'永远年轻'的设计，设有带舒适沙发和扶手椅的用餐区。
Interestingly enough, today McDonald's isn't the world's' largest restaurant chain: 有趣的是，今天麦当劳不是世界上最大的餐饮连锁店：
That title goes to Subway, who have almost 45 thousand locations compared to 37 thousand for McDonald's. 那个称号给了赛百味，他们拥有近4.5万个分店，而麦当劳则有3.7万个。
The company itself owns only 15% of them, the rest being franchised out. 该公司本身只拥有其中的15％，其余的则都是加盟商的。
The restaurants ran by the company account for 2/3rds of its revenue, but that's not the whole story. 这家餐馆经营的公司占其收入的三分之二，但这不是全部的故事。
In reality, it costs way more to run your own restaurant than it does to sit back and collect rent. 在现实中，运行自己的餐厅比坐下来收取租金更费钱。
In 2014, for example, company-operated stores generated $18.2 billion, but McDonald's got to keep only 2.9 billion. 例如，在2014年，公司经营的商店创造了182亿美元，但麦当劳只能拿走29亿美元。
In comparison, out of the $9.2 billion coming in from franchisees, the company kept 7.6, a stunning 80%. 相比之下，在加盟商的9.2亿美元中，公司拿走了7.6亿，惊人的80％。
So even though McDonald's seems to be flipping burgers, in reality they're playing Monopoly instead. 所以即使麦当劳似乎称霸汉堡界，实际上他们正在玩'大富翁'。
Thanks for watching and a big thank you to all of you out there who are supporting us on Patreon! 感谢您的关注，感谢您对我们的支持！
If you liked the history of McDonald's feel free to subscribe for more and to check out the full Behind the Business playlist for the interesting stories of other big companies. 如果您喜欢麦当劳的历史，请随时订阅更多内容，并查看其他大公司的有趣故事。
Once again, thanks a lot for watching, and as always: stay smart. 再一次，非常感谢观看，和往常一样：望您智慧动人。 |
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