In-N-Out Burger by Stacy Perman Page A

of these places?”
    To Kroc’s great good fortune, Dick and Mac McDonald were content with their business and not interested in taking on the kind of national business that Kroc envisioned. But that didn’t mean that someone else couldn’t expand the operation further. Kroc was a consummate salesman, and he soon convinced the McDonalds to make him their exclusive franchising agent to take the company national. On April 15, 1955, Ray Kroc opened his own McDonald’s drive-in in Des Plaines, Illinois, and officially established the McDonald’s Corporation. Over the next five years, Kroc built a chain of 228 McDonald’s that were grossing $56 million a year. However, the relationship between Kroc and the McDonalds was not nearly as successful. Kroc was only earning a paltry 1.9 percent of the gross of all those McDonald hamburgers that he sold and 25 percent of that went to Dick and Mac McDonald. Soon the paper cup salesman had become tense and uneasy with the McDonald brothers. Finally, he had had enough of the relationship. In 1961, Kroc asked the brothers to name their price and persuaded them to sell him the company outright. Their terms: $2.7 million for the company and the name. Soon, Kroc not only boasted that he would open one hundred McDonald’s each year, but he actually surpassed his initial bold claim.
    Actually, it is interesting to note that as a result of his purchase of McDonald’s national franchising rights, Ray Kroc was transformed into an American business icon largely credited with inventing a totally new form of dining almost overnight. However, according to a few industry pioneers, in fact it wasn’t so much that Kroc franchised McDonald’s but that the McDonald brothers were the first fast-food outfit to say yes to Ray Kroc.
    On April 11, 1947, Alan Gamble, a former golf pro from Chicago,and his wife, Ellen, opened a hamburger and pie restaurant based on generations of original family recipes on a spot of farmland on West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. The Apple Pan made its home in a little cottage-style house with a centerpiece grill surrounded by a U-shaped counter encircled by twenty-six red vinyl stools. Back then, the area was surrounded by orchards and bean fields and looked nothing like the pricey Westside real estate it eventually became. Like the Snyders, the Gambles were fanatics about quality and they declared it with a neon sign at the front door: “Quality Forever.” Soon enough, the Apple Pan earned a following for its savory hickory burgers, its tuna salad sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, and its brick-solid apple and pecan pies topped with thick whipped cream.
    But according to Alan and Ellen’s daughter, Martha Gamble, Ray Kroc had made a visit to their eatery in 1949—a good five years before his trip to McDonald’s—and made them an offer. “He liked our concept and wanted to incorporate our ideas into a national franchise,” she said. “My parents said no. They just wanted one place. They wanted to do something and do it well. They said you can’t keep your eye on things like you can at one place.” Gamble, who now runs the Los Angeles cult classic with her daughter Sunny Sherman (exactly as her parents had, right down to the original tartan wallpaper, paper cone soda pop cups, and staff who have been with the Apple Pan for over fifty years), recalled, “I do remember that mother and dad talked about it. But they never got into the business to get rich. The whole idea for them was to make the best hamburgers, sandwiches, and pies that they could make.”
    Even the Snyders’ old friend Carl Karcher said that at one point Kroc had extended a similar offer to take on his small clutch of hot dog stands and barbecues and turn them into a national franchise. “Ray Kroc became a good friend of mine,” Karcher laughed. “But I said no way.” Apparently, he misjudged In-N-Out’s