McDonald’s Corporation

McDonald’s Corporation is one of the largest restaurant brands in the world, serving burgers, chicken, breakfast, coffee, and related items in high-volume locations that range from freestanding drive-thru pads to dense urban storefronts. As of October 2024, the company operates and franchises roughly 42,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries, with franchisees running the vast majority of the system and serving tens of millions of customers each day.

The business began in 1940, when brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a drive-in restaurant in San Bernardino, California. The modern company took shape in 1955, when Ray Kroc opened a McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois, and formed McDonald’s System, Inc., the predecessor to McDonald’s Corporation. A pivotal milestone came in 1961, when Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers and pushed an aggressive franchising and real estate approach that turned McDonald’s into a fixture on highways, suburban arterials, and major urban corners around the world.

Over the decades McDonald’s has added signature products such as the Big Mac, Egg McMuffin, Chicken McNuggets, and Happy Meal, which help drive a steady mix of breakfast, daytime, and evening traffic. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and its stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker MCD. It uses an asset-light structure in which McDonald’s often controls or master-leases the underlying real estate and collects rent and royalties from franchisees, while a smaller share of restaurants are company-operated. This model gives the corporation a direct hand in site selection, building design, and long-term occupancy, and it typically results in long leases that are familiar to lenders, municipalities, and institutional owners.

As of October 2024, McDonald’s is in an active expansion and reinvestment phase under its “Accelerating the Arches” strategy. Over roughly the last five years, the brand has shifted significant attention to digital ordering, mobile apps, loyalty programs, and delivery, and has redesigned many restaurants to handle higher off-premise and drive-thru volumes. The company is opening new units in high-growth international markets across Asia and Latin America, while continuing to infill strong U.S. trade areas and selectively relocate or rebuild legacy stores onto higher-performing corners or more accessible pads. It is also adding and upgrading locations in select European cities and in emerging markets where rising middle-class incomes support quick-service demand.

For owners and developers, McDonald’s is a globally recognized traffic driver with building formats that cities know how to permit and neighbors recognize. The chain anchors highway interchanges, signalized corners, neighborhood centers, and urban high streets, with a particular current focus on sites that support modern drive-thru operations and efficient digital order pickup. Its scale, credit quality, and long-term occupancy approach can help stabilize new projects and redevelopments, and its site decisions often influence how surrounding retail and restaurant uses take shape over time.