It took the support of Ralph Lanphar, a regional manager in Columbus, to obtain corporate permission to test the Big Mac. One of Delligatti’s obstacles in getting the Big Mac approved for sale was its proposed price of 45 cents-twice that of a regular cheeseburger. Uniontown is proclaimed the home town of the Big Mac on this exhibit at the Big Mac Museum. Delligatti said that inventing the Big Mac “wasn’t like discovering the light bulb. When Delligatti started looking for new menu items Wian’s Big Boy sandwich quickly came to mind. Delligatti was introduced to this type of sandwich when he managed a Big Boy drive-in in the early 1950s in southern California. Bob Wian, the founder of the Big Boy drive-in chain, virtually built his entire franchise around a double-decker sandwich. Original names for the burger included “Aristocrat” and “Blue Ribbon Burger.” The name “Big Mac” was created by Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old Advertising Secretary who worked at McDonald’s Corporate office in Chicago.ĭelligatti’s sandwich idea was not wholly his own, however. The special sauce recipe remains a secret, but it is recognized as a variant of Thousand Island dressing. Delligatti’s eventual idea was to combine two-all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun. Delligatti used every opportunity to partner with other multi-store franchise owners and McDonald’s top managers and discuss the need to improve the menu to gain sales through a new target market. He decided that the only way to broaden his customer base and increase sales was to add to the McDonald’s menu.įor the next few years, Jim Delligatti spent time and energy to create a new product for the McDonald’s menu. Delligatti had an exclusive territorial franchise for metropolitan Pittsburgh but was struggling with sub-par store volumes. He was one of McDonald’s earliest franchise owners by the 1960s, he was operating a dozen stores in the Pittsburgh area. In 1957, Jim Delligatti opened his first McDonald’s on McKnight Road in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh. Jim Delligatti with a Big Mac as seen in a picture at the Big Mac Museum. 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. 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. By the mid-50s, Delligatti wanted to open his own restaurant and decided to attend a restaurant show in Chicago in 1956. 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. Delligatti’s father’s job forced the family to move frequently. Michael James Delligatti was born in Uniontown, Fayette County in 1918. The Big Mac is now sold internationally and is one of the company’s signature products. 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. 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.
#OLD BIG MAC DEAL 2 FOR FULL#
Click on any picture in this story to see its full version, as well as in the gallery at the bottom of the page.Ī 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. Two all-beef patties special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.
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