L'enseigne Burger King (texte en anglais)

The first restaurant of the chain is opened in Miami on December 4th, 1954 under the name of Insta Burger king by James McLamore and David Edgerton, two students of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. McLamore had visited the restaurant “Mc Donald’s” in San Bernardino, California, and understood the potential of such a service of catering and decided to create its own version.

Whopper was created in 1957 by the founder of Burger King James McLamore and sold for 37 cents.

In 1967, Burger King is bought by Pillsbury, which is acquired again by Grand Metropolitan PLC of Britain in 1988.

In 1989, the franchising acquires numerous points of sale of his British competitor Wimpy when his holding company buys the brand from United Biscuits and integrates into Burger King, spreading even more its presence in the country. While Wimpy restaurants exist even today (from now on independently of Burger King), they have no more the same presence as in the past (the market being now dominated by Burger King and especially MCDONALD).

In 1997, Grand Metropolitan merges with Guinness to form the company Diageo.

In 1997 Burger King decides to leave France and closes his 39 restaurants there.

On December 13th, 2002, Burger King is acquired 1.5 billion dollars by a private group managed by Stanley Foster and the Texas Pacific Group firm. The new owners revitalized the company and realized approximately 367 million dollars of dividends.

Today, Burger King is n°2 of the fast food in the USA, behind Mc Donald’s.

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