The First Fast Food Restaurant

Although there are discussions about what’s the first fast food restaurant in the States, White Castle arguably won the competition.

White Castle was opened for business in 1921 and it’s working ever since. It was founded in Wichita, Kansas by Walt Anderson and Billy Ingram.

It’s a story of success since it wasn’t that simple to run a fast food restaurant back in the days. There was no infrastructure to support the growing business.

That’s why they built their own. Everything from meat supply centers to bakeries and warehouses.

White Castle is still privately owned and all the restaurants across the States are company-owned making it one of the few non-franchised fast food restaurants.

First fast food restaurant – What’s the secret?

White Castle is a brand that lasts almost a full century and there aren’t many out there that can say the same.

It owes its popularity to their most famous product – the sliders. They’re small squared hamburgers with a long tradition and are still sold as one of their products.

Sliders were their main product and were selling for only 5 cents a piece until the 1940s. Everybody loved these (and still do) due to their compact size which doesn’t require much hassle to eat without getting your face dirty.

You can check the full selection of products here.

Runner-ups

It took almost a decade after the White Castle was founded for another fast food chain to emerge.

In 1930 the KFC was opened for business and became one of the top brands of fried kitchen in the world.

It was a different era back then and alongside that a different market. None of these restaurants were as huge and spread around the country (even world) as today.

In the following events, a full decade later McDonald’s – the most famous fast food restaurants in the world was opened.

McDonald’s left its mark on the fast food industry being the leader in the market with restaurants in more than 100 countries around the world.