1. The First Hamburger Chain
McDonald’s, Burger King and that girl with the braids are better known, but they were all latecomers to the game. Walter Anderson and Billy Ingram partnered up to employ Henry Ford’s assembly line model in a restaurant setting. They opened their first White Castle in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, a time when Americans were skeptical about the wholesomeness of ground beef. Anderson put the complete “making of” story in full view of the customer; they watched as a cook formed the ground beef into a patty and placed it on the grill. The stark white and shiny chrome theme in the building’s décor was also a subliminal hint as to the purity of the food. Sales at that first restaurant were so overwhelming that they soon opened more White Castles (each with the same interior and exterior architecture), first in Kansas and then in Nebraska and Minnesota.