At a McDonald’s franchise in Goleta, a breakfast sandwich – egg, cheese, Canadian bacon on a toasted English muffin – is served for the first time.
What becomes the Egg McMuffin costs 55 cents. It is the brainchild of Herb Peterson, owner of the Santa Barbara fast food restaurant and a former ad man credited with helping design the first costume for Ronald McDonald and the McDonald’s slogan, “Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day.”
Like several other franchisees, Peterson sees breakfast as an untapped opportunity for fast food. Competitor Jack-in-the-Box is already marketing an Eggs Benedict sandwich, which is what Peterson experiments with to create the Egg McMuffin.
The McMuffin and similar offerings by fast-food chains transform the industry. Before the McMuffin, McDonald’s restaurants opened at 11 a.m. Breakfast is now nearly 25 percent of McDonald’s annual revenues, which are more than $21 billion in 2018.
To ensure the eggs fit within the round muffin, Peterson commissions a local blacksmith to make a Teflon-coated iron ring to cook them in. Peterson serves the sandwich open-faced. According to McDonald’s:
“Peterson invited (McDonald’s founder Ray) Kroc to stop by a store over the Christmas holiday, and even though Kroc had just eaten lunch, he ate two of the egg sandwiches anyway. Peterson’s organized demonstration of the new product, complete with a flip chart to explain its economics, wasn’t what sold Kroc. It was the sandwich itself.”
A Chicago native, Peterson is raised by his mother, aunt and grandmother. At 22, he joins the Marine Corps, serving four years during World War II. After the war, he becomes a vice president at D’Arcy Advertising in Chicago, which has McDonald’s as a client. He becomes friends with Kroc who encourages Peterson to open his own McDonald’s franchise somewhere. Peterson’s wife of 64 years is named Barbara and so the family moves from Chicago and opens the first McDonald’s in the Santa Barbara area. Peterson dies at 89 in 2008.
Despite his marketing background, Peterson doesn’t name his revolutionary creation. It’s Patty Turner, the wife of Fred Turner, McDonald’s Chairman from 1977 to 2004, who does that at a dinner party with the Krocs.
TOP Photo: McDonald’s Restaurant sign against sky and clouds. Photo by Alex Vassar.