The story of Burger King began in 1953. It was founded by Keith J. Kramer and his wife’s uncle, Matthew Burns. The initial name was Insta-Burger King. Inspired by the success of the McDonald’s franchises over in California, they opened their first store in Jacksonville, Florida.

But in 1954, Insta-Burger King had financial problems, then its two Miami-based franchisees David Edgerton and James McLamore purchased the company and renamed it to “Burger King”. At the time hamburgers and milkshakes were 18 cents.

One of the most popular burgers from Burger King is the Whopper.  The beefy burger was created by McLamore in 1957 when he noticed that one competitor restaurant was selling a larger burger and having bigger success for that. McLamore felt that the name conveyed “imagery of something big”. Whopper was originally sold for 37 cents. Their biggest rival, McDonald’s, released a similar product in 1968 with the name Big Mac.

In 1963, Burger King opened its first restaurants outside the United States located in Puerto Rico. Edgerton and McLamore finally selling Burger King to Pillsbury Company in 1967 for $18 million. According to Burger King website, the company had 274 restaurants and around 8.000 employees across the world at the time.

Pillsbury management tried to restructure Burger King in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. The Pillsbury executive VP Norman E. Brinker launched a new advertising campaign featuring a series of attack advertisements against their major competitors in the 80’s. 

The object was to gain more strength and popularity especially against McDonald’s. This legendary battle was called “The Burger War” and created the decades-long rivalry between McDonald’s and Burger King – Big Mac or Whopper ?