50 free McDonald's trivia questions with answers. McDonald's is the most recognisable restaurant on the planet, and its story is stranger than the menu suggests. This quiz follows it from a San Bernardino drive-in with carhops to a company with more than 40,000 restaurants: the brothers who invented the Speedee Service System, the mixer salesman who bought them out, the franchisees who dreamed up the Big Mac, the Filet-O-Fish, the Egg McMuffin and the McFlurry, and the ad agency characters who turned a purple milkshake thief into a mascot. Early questions are the sort anyone who has ordered a Happy Meal can answer; later ones cover the hot coffee lawsuit, the Monopoly fraud, the beef-tallow fries controversy and the one town where the arches are not golden. It suits a family game night, a food round at pub quiz or a marketing class icebreaker. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and reference sources before publishing, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which California city did the McDonald brothers open the original McDonald's restaurant in 1940?
San Bernardino
The brothers had run an earlier food stand in Monrovia with their father before moving out along Route 66.
Q 02What was Ray Kroc selling when he first visited the McDonald brothers in 1954?
Milkshake mixers
The brothers had bought eight of his Prince Castle Multimixers, and Kroc went to see why one stand needed so many.
Q 03Ray Kroc's first franchised restaurant opened in 1955 in which Illinois town?
Des Plaines
It was actually the ninth McDonald's overall, but the corporation dates itself from Kroc's April 15, 1955 opening.
Q 04For what sum did Ray Kroc buy out the McDonald brothers in 1961?
$2.7 million
The figure was set so each brother would clear $1 million after taxes; they lost the right to their own name and had to rebrand their original stand The Big M.
Q 05What was the brothers' streamlined kitchen method, the fast food industry's template, called?
The Speedee Service System
They fired their 20 carhops, replaced plates with paper and cut the menu to nine items when they launched it in 1948.
Q 06Before Ronald McDonald, what was the chain's original mascot?
A hamburger-headed chef named Speedee
The Golden Arches replaced him as the universal symbol in 1962, a year before the clown arrived.
Q 07The Golden Arches were originally two real yellow arches on the building. Who sketched the idea?
One of the founding brothers
Richard McDonald drew the rough sketch; the brothers went through several architects who wanted to change or drop the arches before Meston agreed to build two 25-foot neon-trimmed arches.
Q 08The Big Mac was invented by franchisee Jim Delligatti and first sold in 1967 in which Pennsylvania town?
Uniontown
Delligatti admitted he simply copied the Big Boy double-decker, and the burger went national in 1968.
Q 09Which of these was a rejected early name for the Big Mac?
The Aristocrat
The Blue Ribbon Burger also flopped; the winning name came from Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old advertising secretary at headquarters.
Q 10In the 1974 jingle, a Big Mac's patties, sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions sit on what?
A sesame-seed bun
The special sauce is similar to Thousand Island dressing, and the bun has three slices to hold the two patties apart.
Q 11The Economist uses the price of which McDonald's item to compare the buying power of world currencies?
Big Mac
The index was introduced in 1986 by Pam Woodall as a semi-humorous illustration of purchasing power parity and gave the world the word 'burgernomics'.
Q 12The Filet-O-Fish was invented in 1962 by a Cincinnati franchisee whose sales dropped every Friday. Why?
His Catholic neighbourhood abstained from meat
Lou Groen's store was in the heavily Catholic Monfort Heights area, and until 1966 Catholics skipped meat on Fridays all year round.
Q 13Ray Kroc's meat-free rival to the Filet-O-Fish was a grilled slice of what?
Pineapple
Q 21The Happy Meal grew out of a 1970s 'Ronald Menu' created by a franchisee's wife in which country?
Guatemala
Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño's bundle of a hamburger, small fries and a sundae was later developed into the boxed meal by ad man Bob Bernstein.
Q 22The Quarter Pounder was created in 1971 by franchisee Al Bernardin in which city?
Fremont, California
His slogan was 'Today Fremont, tomorrow the world', and it went national in 1973.
Q 23The McFlurry was invented in 1995 by a franchisee in which country?
Canada
Ron McLellan's Bathurst, New Brunswick store sold the first one, Oreo-flavoured, on June 7, 1995; the hollow-handled spoon attaches to a blender.
The Hula Burger put pineapple and cheese on a cold bun; the fish sandwich 'won hands down' and was nationwide by 1965.
Q 14The Egg McMuffin, invented in 1972 by Herb Peterson, was designed to resemble which breakfast dish?
Eggs Benedict
The perfectly round egg comes from cooking it in a ring mould, and the first officially authorised one was served in Belleville, New Jersey.
Q 15According to McDonald's, Chicken McNuggets come in four shapes: the ball, the bell, the boot and what?
The bow tie
The shape is also called the bone; the recipe was created in 1979 by René Arend, the company's first executive chef, a native of Luxembourg.
Q 16The McRib, introduced in 1981, is made from what meat?
Pork
The patty is restructured boneless shoulder meat shaped like a tiny rack of ribs, and it is a permanent menu item in Germany and Luxembourg.
Q 17Since the 1980s, what flavour has McDonald's March-only Shamrock Shake been?
Mint
By 1973 it was just a green-dyed vanilla shake; the earlier version used lemon-lime sherbet.
Q 18Proceeds from Shamrock Shakes helped fund the first Ronald McDonald House in 1974, in which city?
Philadelphia
The daughter of a Philadelphia Eagles player was being treated for leukaemia, and the team, the children's hospital and Ray Kroc raised the money together.
Q 19Until 1990, McDonald's fries in the US were cooked mainly in what?
Beef tallow
The switch to vegetable oil followed a newspaper-ad campaign by heart-attack survivor Phil Sokolof, and in 2002 the chain paid $10 million to settle suits over labelling the fries vegetarian.
Q 20The Happy Meal went national in the US in which year?
1979
The very first tie-in was a Star Trek Meal promoting Star Trek: The Motion Picture that December.
Q 24The first McDonald's drive-through opened in 1975 in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Who was it built to serve?
Soldiers from a nearby army base
Troops from Fort Huachuca were not permitted to get out of their cars off-post while wearing fatigues, so a window was the answer.
Q 25The McCafé coffee-shop concept was created by McDonald's in which country in 1993?
Australia
It began in Melbourne, and locals there call the chain Macca's, a nickname it has used in official Australian branding.
Q 26Which television weatherman played the very first Ronald McDonald in 1963 Washington, D.C. commercials?
Willard Scott
Scott had just finished playing Bozo the Clown on local TV; the familiar costume and make-up came later, from circus performer Coco the Clown in 1966.
Q 27When Grimace first appeared in 1971, what was he?
A four-armed villain who stole milkshakes
'Evil Grimace' tested badly, so McDonald's removed his extra arms and made him a lovable lump; the company has confirmed he represents a giant taste bud.
Q 28What does McDonald's say Grimace is meant to represent?
A giant taste bud
His 2023 birthday shake became an internet phenomenon, and his 2024 first pitch at Citi Field coincided with a Mets winning streak.
Q 29In 1973 the creators of which children's TV show sued McDonald's, claiming McDonaldland copied it?
H.R. Pufnstuf
Sid and Marty Krofft argued Mayor McCheese was a copy of their own mayor character; the Kroffts won and several McDonaldland characters were dropped.
Q 30What does the Hamburglar steal?
Hamburgers
He and Grimace both started as villains and were softened over the years into lovable rogues.