Before the first Golden Arches shined brightly in the Philippines, the man behind the country’s first McDonald’s store donned the apron and learned to grill burgers and toast buns.
He and his son, Kenneth, went through some rigorous kitchen training in one of the busiest McDonald’s branches in Hong Kong as part of the service crew, shared the 84-year-old George Yang in an interview with Manila Bulletin.
Kenneth, who was 15 years old at that time, said his father was already putting “ketchup in my veins,”—the love for the brand ingrained from the beginning. But it wasn’t just a training; preparing McDo meals was also a memorable father-and-son bonding experience.
“I was wearing a crew uniform and hat, toasting and dressing buns in a McDonald’s restaurant along Granville Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. What made this experience more memorable for me was that my dad was wearing the exact same uniform, grilling patties beside me,” Kenneth reminisced.
That was in 1980, a year before he opened the first McDo restaurant in Morayta, Manila, and welcomed Filipino customers hungry for American fast-food.
But it was back in 1974 when the Wharton Business School-University of Pennsylvania graduate put his business acumen to good use. He was reading a business newspaper when he saw the opportunity and the vision of running a fast-food business. He knew that this would be a hit in the Philippines.
“One time I read about quick service restaurants and thought that this will work in the Philippines,” he said.
With that conviction, he dialed up the McDonald’s headquarters in the United States and boldly pitched his vision to bring the famed burger chain to Philippine shores.
“At that time, they didn’t know much about the Philippines so they asked me ‘How many branches are you planning to open?” and I said ‘10!’ and this surprised the McDonald’s chairman who said ‘That many?’,” he said.
It was seven years after that meeting that Filipinos finally had their first glimpse of the radiant Golden Arches, making McDonald’s the first foreign fast-food franchise to enter the Philippines. Today, it boasts of having 700 stores nationwide, with expansion plans of 50 new restaurants a year.
