Memoirs of a Fast Food Man

By Ed Pendrys

Growing up in the Great Depression, serving in World War II, living through the rapidly changing times of our modern age Ed Pendrys witnessed most of the twentieth century. Perhaps nothing so appropriately symbolized the quickening lifestyle of America as much as the rise of the fast food industry. Granting us a unique perspective, Pendrys memoirs take us back to the industrys very beginnings.

Owner of the very first Chicago area Burger King, and the second one in the world outside of Florida, Pendrys youngest franchisee at just thirty-three years of age was there at the start, when burgers and shakes cost 19 and a Whopper cost just 39. In 1965, even at those numbers, he was able to gross in excess of one-million dollars, just one of three franchisees in the nation to do so.

Pure Americana, Memoirs of a Fast Food Man is more than history. It is a story of entrepreneurship, it is a story of business, it is a story of rags to riches. It is a story of America in the 20th century.

Memoirs of a Fast Food Man is a story of our times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456720742

Ed Pendrys

N/A- see ATB

Book preview

Acknowledgments

There are many people I have to thank, many who have contributed to this book by enriching my life with their friendship, and their loyalty to me and my companies.

Jim McLamore and Dave Edgerton – the founders of Burger King in Miami – gave me the opportunity to become one of the earliest BK franchisees, and for this I will always be thankful. So, too, am I thankful for their tolerating my insistent ideas for change!

Others from the Burger King days who have meant more to me than words can say:

I will be forever grateful!

Additional acknowledgments

Thanks to Robert Neri, owner of Rembrandt Studios for the photography herein, Gracie Sturtz for her computer assistance, and Jeanne just for being my wife!

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

A Different World

Chapter Two

The War Years

Chapter Three

Deputy Pendrys

Chapter Four

The Start of Something Big

Chapter Five

The Rise of an Industry

Chapter Six

Back Home in Chicago

Chapter Seven

An Industry Begins to Mature

Chapter Eight

Burger King & Beyond

Chapter Nine

Beliefs I Hold & Lessons I’ve Learned

Chapter Ten

A Life Well Lived

Chapter One

A Different World

Chicago in the Roaring Twenties. City of big shoulders, Carl Sandburg called it. Hog butcher for the world. The stockyards were in their heyday. It was the days of Prohibition, Al Capone, and bathtub gin. Jazz and the Charleston and flappers. And on a September day in 1925, I was born into it, right in the stockyards area on the South side.

I was the youngest of five, and all four older siblings were girls. That meant, among other things, that bathroom privileges in our modest home were at a premium. I don’t think I remember ever having more than about ten seconds to myself in there before somebody – either Adele or Anne or Elaine or Lillian – was pounding on the door. Small price to pay though, for such wonderful sisters.

When I was little older we moved into a house with a basement and the basement came complete with a small washroom. That would be my refuge. Dad was often relegated to the basement, too, as Mom would make him go downstairs if he wanted to smoke a cigar. I can still picture him down there, blowing the smoke out through the furnace door. But at least with the basement there was one section, however small, that could act as a sanctuary for the men of the house.

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Our family. Dad and Mom, my four beautiful sisters, and me.

Not that we really needed a sanctuary. The truth is our whole family was close. That’s the way Dad and Mom raised us. It was always family first and we would do everything together, including sitting down at the dinner table every night. Mom worked for Illinois Bell and when she’d sometimes have to work evenings, she’d make sure that dinner was prepared in advance so that all Dad had to do was heat it and serve it. It was left to my sisters to make sure that the table was set properly and that everybody displayed correct table manners. You risked the wrath of Anne in particular if you so much as had your elbows on the table.

On weekends we’d often have picnics at Cedar Lake. Mom would fix potato salad and pork chops. Sometimes in the summers we’d rent a cottage for a week in Saugatuck, right on Lake Michigan. I was a lucky kid.

The thing is, like seemingly everybody back in those days, especially after the crash in ’29, we didn’t have very much money. But my sisters and I didn’t know that. All of our needs were always taken care of. I didn’t fully realize it until later in life, but Mom and Dad had to work like the devil to make it that way. Dad mended our shoes and repaired things around the house while Mom did the sewing and cooked nourishing meals practically from scratch. The girls passed their clothes around to one another, splitting a wardrobe amongst the four of them that probably wouldn’t be thought of as sufficient for one teenage girl today. Life was simpler then.

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My parents. I couldn’t have asked for better ones.

Dad worked as a wireman and repairman for Western Electric. He was a true jack-of-all-trades, with mechanical skills, electrical skills, and a hell of a carpenter to boot. One time he dug out the flooring under the kitchen and built a small cellar to keep the canned goods that Mom would make. He carried the dirt out one bucketful at a time, and he kept at it until we had a twelve-foot by twelve-foot cellar about four feet deep. Then he built storage shelves down there. I thought he was the smartest guy in the world. But during the depression he lost his job at Western Electric and had to go in search of work – finding it eventually as a butcher for Swift & Company in the stockyards. Add one more thing he became skilled at. Then Western Electric called one day; they needed him back, but my sister Lillian happened to pick up the phone and let them know that Dad was now gainfully employed elsewhere and consequently unavailable. Thanks, she told them, but he’s got a job. The funny thing is, Dad would have probably gone back to Western Electric had Lillian not intercepted the call. But he made decent money as a butcher, and a butcher he would remain.

Of all my sisters, Lillian was everybody’s favorite. She was smart, pretty, and funny. She played the piano, was her class valedictorian, and was planning on going to college for journalism. All the boys in the neighborhood wanted to date her. Lillian was full of life.

For family transportation we had a 1932 Nash. Dad was able to take it apart and put it back together all by himself. From scratch, the man designed and installed a jump seat just for me, attaching it to the inside wall behind the driver’s seat. You could raise and lower it to suit. My four sisters would sit on the back seat, Mom & Dad would sit up front, and I’d have the jump seat – seven people comfortably in a two-door automobile.

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My father in our 1932 Nash

Dad would work on the car with me by his side, teaching me the ins and outs of automobile mechanics. I got pretty good myself. We would do engine overhauls, removing the cylinders and installing new piston rings. We’d remove the valves, clean the carbon off, and reset them. We’d work on the carburetor, change the engine oil, and patch the inner tubes that the old tires had back then. You’d pump up the tires by hand in those days because hand pumps were all you had.

I remember once, when the timing was off, Dad sent me down to the local Blue Star Auto Store to ask the guy there how to set the timing. I must have been no older than twelve and the guy at Blue Star repeated the steps to me, chuckling the whole time. Let me know how you make out, kid, he laughed. I don’t guess I blame him. I probably wouldn’t take the question seriously from a twelve-year old, either, but I walked home and repeated the steps flawlessly to Dad and together we set the timing perfectly. I made a trip back to Blue Star the next day. I made out just fine, I told the guy, thanks. He just stared back.

We took that Nash to Detroit every now and again to visit aunts and uncles. My Uncle Stan was Paymaster for Ford Motor Company, reporting directly to old Henry Ford himself. Years later he would join me in my operation, handling the payroll for over 300 employees and doing it all by hand. There were no computers back then.

Another uncle, Uncle George, taught me to play the accordion. I got pretty good. My sisters would play the piano and sing and together we’d gather around and play In the Mood, Oh What it Seemed to Be, Near You, In the Blue of the Evening, Paper Doll, Stardust, and a bunch of other great old tunes. Sheet music was twenty-five cents and we’d save our nickels and dimes to buy new songs to play.

I guess I was lucky with uncles, because yet a third one ended up being a real role model for me. I greatly admired Uncle Jimmy. He was a tough guy who worked one time as the sparring partner for the Brown Bomber – heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Later, Jimmy would go on to become Democratic Precinct Captain of the 12th Ward, right in the stockyards area. Jimmy taught me about life and living right. Always do the right thing, he’d tell me. Keep the brain clean, go to school, make your parents proud. I sometimes think there are not enough good role models these days for young men.

My parents were good Catholics and my sisters and I went to a Catholic school. From the age of seven I was an altar boy and I loved it. It meant I got out of school to assist the priest in funeral services and such. And of course a nice tasty lunch would always follow those services.

When I got into high school I joined ROTC. I eventually became first sergeant. I liked it. I liked the discipline. I liked the spit