Ray Kroc

The furnace ran constantly, but the exhaust fans for the griddle and fry vats blew out all the heat and kept killing the pilot light.

Gas accumulated.

The temperature inside hovered around 40 degrees.

When the weather warmed up, the reverse happened.

The fans exhausted the cool air and the kitchen climbed to 100 degrees.

But those were just equipment problems.

The real crisis was the food.

Ray had memorized the McDonald's Brothers procedure for making fries, and he followed it exactly to the T. But the result was different.

It was mush.

It was like golden brown, perfectly shaped.

It was tasteless, but it was just mush.

It didn't have the same kick.

He tried to again and again and get the same thing.

He called the brothers, but they couldn't figure it out either.

His whole idea depended on replicating the McDonald's standard, and here he was, unable to get the fries right in his very first store.

Finally, he called the Potato and Onion Association.

One of their lab men asked him to walk them through the entire process, starting when the potatoes were bought.

When Ray got to the part about the chicken wire bins where the McDonald's stored their potatoes in the desert breeze, the man stopped him.

That's it.

Potatoes improve as they dry out.