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A short list of some of the more famous founders in the fast food industry. Many of these people came from humble beginnings to create the food we all love today.
Harland Sanders was the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
He led a wildly varied life before creating his famous fried chicken empire.
Amazingly, he started KFC at age 65!
Before KFC, he had jobs ranging from streetcar conductor to gas station operator. Even an amateur obstetrician.
Sanders' original restaurant was closed due to a new interstate highway, which forced him to franchise his secret recipe.
Sander is best known for his signature white suit and string tie.
Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's fast food chain, has appeared in over 800 commercials for the company, more than any founder in television history.
He dropped out of high school as a teenager but later earned his GED at age 61. This helped him become an education advocate. He founded the Dave Thomas Education Center to help others obtain their high school equivalency diplomas.
Glen Bell is the founder of Taco Bell. He started by opening a hot dog stand called Bell's Drive-In in 1948.
However, he pivoted to tacos, creating the iconic taco chain.
Bell also briefly owned and operated a 3 ft gauge tourist railroad in Tuolumne, California, in the late 1970s. It had steam locomotives and boat rides on an old mill pond.
Fred DeLuca was the co-founder of Subway. He started the brand at 17 years old with a $1,000 loan.
Subway would become the world's largest fast-food franchise.
DeLuca's legacy was tarnished when it was revealed he had personally recruited and gifted a car to that Subway's famous spokesman, Jared Fogle, whom DeLuca had personally recruited and gifted a car to.
There were then allegations that high-ranking Subway executives may have been alerted to Fogle's criminal behavior years before it became public.
Ray Kroc was initially a milkshake mixer salesman into his 50s.
He would later transform McDonald's from a single restaurant into a global empire, using aggressive expansion and standardization, which is still taught in business school today.
James McLamore was the co-founder of Burger King.
You might know him through his creation, the Whopper.
He came from a poor background. He likes to tell how he arrived at Cornell University with just $11.
McLamore became an investor in the Miami Dolphins and raised $5 million to rebuild Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden after Hurricane Andrew.
John Schnatter is the founder of Papa John's Pizza.
He sold his prized 1971 Camaro to start the business in 1984. Crazily, he repurchased it 25 years later for $250,000.
Schnatter was ousted from his own company in 2018 after using a racial slur during a conference call about diversity training. During the scandal, he made public statements, including his claim of eating "40 pizzas in 30 days.”
S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, invented the chicken sandwich.
He made the unconventional decision to close all restaurants on Sundays due to his religious beliefs.
Cathy died recently with an estimated worth of $1.2 billion.
Tom Monaghan founded Domino's Pizza.
He went from an orphanage to a billionaire.
He used his fortune to build a Catholic law school and attempt to create a utopian Catholic town in Florida with a 250-foot crucifix taller than the Statue of Liberty.
After reading C.S. Lewis, he abruptly abandoned his lavish lifestyle.
He sold the Detroit Tigers baseball team and gave up his prized Bugatti Royale. He gave it all away to focus on Catholic philanthropy. He’s most recently famous for constructing a new cathedral in Nicaragua.
Pete Harman was the entrepreneur who opened the first KFC franchise in 1952.
He played a role in developing KFC's iconic bucket packaging. And he made the slogan "Finger-lickin' good" slogan.
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