Ray Kroc's Proposal
"What do you mean?"
Ki-jo asked Park Hee-jun.
"He asked me, perfectly serious, whether Korea even had potatoes."
"Potatoes?"
"Yes. So I told him we grow a great many. I said Gangwon Province turns out excellent potatoes."
Hee-jun smiled.
"Then Mr. Ray Kroc asked whether we raise cattle here too. I told him a lot of the cattle had died in the war. He said he'd fought in the Second World War himself, so he knew what war was."
As he drove, Ki-jo turned over why Ray Kroc would have asked such things. Potatoes and beef were the principal ingredients of everything McDonald's sold.
"He also asked what Koreans eat as their staple food. I said rice—and that we eat potatoes as a side dish, and beef as well, and that there isn't much a Korean won't eat. He laughed at that."
Hee-jun went on about the McDonald's restaurant itself.
"I stopped in at the store my father runs and watched the operation. The system Ray Kroc has built is remarkable. The way he deploys people, the machinery—it's all extremely efficient. Hamburgers were pouring out by the dozen every minute."
"Like a factory?"
"Exactly. The crew split the work the way they would on a factory line and assembled the burgers that way. There were rules for storing the ingredients and for cooking, too. Even the French fries. They keep the potatoes at a set temperature and humidity, cut them to a uniform size, soak them to draw the starch out, and only then fry them. Not one step was left to feel or guesswork. The oil temperature and the frying time were fixed exactly."
Hee-jun said Ray Kroc struck him as a very shrewd man.
Ki-jo agreed. Ray Kroc was a businessman through and through. He had taken the recipes and the know-how the McDonald brothers had developed, learned them down to the last particular, and was applying them without a flaw.
While they talked, they came off the far end of the Han River bridge. In those days Yeouido still had an airfield, and Yongsan was little more than ten minutes away.
Park Hee-jun picked the thread back up.
"He asked me this and that, sounding Korea out, and only afterward did he ask who had written the letter. So I told him it was my partner—a Korean businessman who'd made a great deal of money hauling cargo for the U.S. military. And that he was in the seasoning business as well."
"Did he say anything about the letter I wrote?"
"Hmm... He didn't really comment on what was in it. Instead he asked how many American troops were stationed in Korea."
"He asked the number of GIs?"
"Yes. So I told him there were roughly sixty thousand. Then he asked if I knew how many were in Japan, and I said Japan probably had about the same."
Ki-jo reckoned Ray Kroc had been measuring how many people in Korea and Japan could actually afford to buy a McDonald's hamburger. He did not yet seem to count Koreans or Japanese even as potential customers.
"Mr. Kroc also asked whether the families of the troops in Korea were here with them."
"What did you tell him?"
"I said of course the families were in Korea too."
Hee-jun's answer was half right and half wrong. In October of '58 a plan had been announced for the families of U.S. Forces Korea to live in the country, and from this year it was to apply only to the families of the U.S. Military Advisory Group.
"After he heard me out, Mr. Kroc seemed to turn it over for a while. Then he said he had no thought of selling the operating rights for Korea, China, and Japan just yet—but that running a McDonald's aimed at the American troops in Korea was something he could consider."
That was encouraging news.
The jeep had reached the Bando Hotel, so Ki-jo spoke.
"Let's finish the rest over a cup of coffee."
With that he pulled up before the entrance of the Bando Hotel. He handed the keys to the valet, and the two of them carried Hee-jun's luggage up to the room together.
Hee-jun gathered the gifts for Ki-jo's family, left them with the first-floor lobby, and asked to have them wrapped. The hotel staff, taking a request from a VIP guest, smiled, lifted the presents, and vanished with them somewhere.
Ki-jo and Hee-jun went into the coffee shop off the lobby.
The Bando Hotel coffee shop was full of foreigners. An English banner wishing the new year well hung there beside the garlands that had gone up at Christmas.
Ki-jo ordered coffee and went on listening.
"Where did I leave off?"
"You said Mr. Kroc told you he was willing to consider a store aimed at the U.S. troops in Korea."
"Ah, right. He said he'd been a veteran of the Second World War himself, and that he took a real interest in American servicemen posted overseas."
"I see. So that's why he's interested in a store for the GIs."
"Yes. He said if you, President Lee, can arrange for a store to open inside a U.S. military compound, he'll ship the cooking equipment from America and send an instructor as well."
Ki-jo was glad of the news Hee-jun had brought. And the more he thought about it, the more Ray Kroc impressed him as a remarkable businessman.
He seemed to have taken the measure of the Korean market first. With sixty thousand American troops and their families on hand, a single McDonald's in Korea could turn a healthy trade—that appeared to be his judgment. And he seemed to be angling for the publicity as well.
McDonald's was not yet a famous hamburger franchise known across the United States. It was still a local chain rooted in California, pushing franchises out beyond the state one by one. In that situation, even a single store in Korea would put the name in the mouths of sixty thousand American soldiers. If the troops stationed here ate the burgers, liked them, and went home saying McDonald's had been good, there would be a word-of-mouth effect besides. A veteran himself, he would have known precisely how much servicemen overseas longed for the food of home.
That Ray Kroc recognized a market in Korea, and meant to chase the publicity too, seemed plain enough. What nagged at Ki-jo was the condition he had attached. He would grant the store only if the McDonald's were placed inside a U.S. military PX.
Ki-jo thought a meticulous calculation lay hidden in that condition. Kroc seemed to doubt whether food could even be prepared hygienically in a backward country like Korea. To settle the doubt, he had apparently required that the restaurant be built inside a military compound. Pass the Army's strict sanitary inspection, and only then would he judge it safe to allow a McDonald's in Korea.
Ki-jo found the solution admirable. It was exactly what one would expect of the man who would one day build a worldwide hamburger empire.
"Do you think you can win the right to operate a PX?"
Hee-jun asked.
It was not an easy thing to answer. There were a good many obstacles still to clear.
"Hard to say. Not right away, I don't think."
Park Hee-jun looked disappointed at that. But reality was reality.
Ki-jo believed the U.S. military did not trust Koreans. They were exacting even about bringing food out of a Korea rife with disease in man and beast alike. They recoiled at vegetables raised on night soil, and they taught their soldiers to beware Korean produce and meat on account of the parasites. Even when they put Koreans to work in a military mess, they used them only for the menial jobs. To get a Korean-run restaurant inside a PX, dealing with men like that, would be a stretch even if he brought Hausman to bear.
Above all, the trust had to be earned first. Kim Hae-soo's radio repair shop had been able to set up inside a U.S. PX only because of the name he had made in Busan. He was known as the best radio man among Koreans, and the GIs who had used his shop had already vouched for the work. If a Korean restaurant was ever to get inside a U.S. base, it would first have to win recognition for taste and hygiene outside the fence.
Ki-jo turned to Hee-jun.
"President Park, is there a way to reach Mr. Ray Kroc?"
"There is. My younger brother, Hee-soo, is helping Father, and he's in frequent contact with McDonald's headquarters."
"Then please tell them, for now, that I want to buy the cooking equipment McDonald's uses."
"Buy the cooking equipment?"
"Yes. And ask your brother to copy the McDonald's operating manual and send it to me."
"Understood. One moment."
Hee-jun took out a notebook and wrote the request down.
"What are you planning to do?"
"For the time being I won't hang the McDonald's name. I mean to run the place exactly the way McDonald's does."
"And where do you intend to open it?"
"Right in front of the Yongsan base. If that shop wins the GIs over, I think we can put a McDonald's franchise inside Eighth Army grounds."
Hee-jun nodded.
"Say we bring the equipment and the know-how in from America. How will you get the ingredients? Bread and vegetables you could source here, but beef and milk are impossible, aren't they?"
"We'll use what comes out of the U.S. bases."
Hee-jun laughed at that. His questions, though, did not stop.
"Still, President Lee—even if the shop succeeds and you get it inside the base, will you really make much in dollars? For all the effort, I don't think there'd be much left over."
He was right. One hamburger shop would not make a fortune. But Ki-jo felt it in his bones. Learn to make a single hamburger properly, and a great success would follow later.
He looked five years ahead. Five years from now a great opportunity would open in Vietnam. Once the United States entered the war there, a boom of astronomical scale would follow—and the American command would forbid its own soldiers to drink so much as Vietnamese water. Anything but the air of Vietnam. Distrusting the country itself, they would bring in most of their supplies from overseas. If, in that moment, he could point to a record of having fed American troops food they trusted, it would be a powerful help in winning military work in Vietnam. The Army would favor the contractor who had already given them water they could drink and food they could eat without fear.
Getting into a PX would mean meeting Ray Kroc's terms and opening Korea's first McDonald's. It would also mean winning the Army's own certification: a firm that could be trusted.
"It won't be big money right away. But I think it could become the kind of business that makes big money later."
"Ha—if you say so, President Lee, I'll help you with everything I've got. And opening one hamburger shop isn't such an expensive venture anyway. Even if it fails, it won't be much of a burden."
Hee-jun laughed, full and easy.
Ki-jo asked him to make his intentions plain to Ray Kroc. He stressed one thing more: should the venture fail, he would not let it stain the McDonald's name. He would not claim to have used the same facilities and the same know-how.
As their talk was drawing to a close, a hotel employee came over with four boxes. They were the gifts Hee-jun had left to be wrapped. The boxes were neatly done up in J.C. Penney paper and ribbon.
Hee-jun tipped the man who had wrapped them with such care, then passed the boxes to Ki-jo.
"Please give these to your family, with my regards."
"Thank you, President Park. They'll be delighted."
Ki-jo took the gifts and rose. Hee-jun, worn out by the long flight, needed rest, and Ki-jo himself had to hurry the preparations for winning a place inside a U.S. PX.
After seeing Hee-jun off and coming home, Ki-jo set to the groundwork for getting a McDonald's into a PX. He began with the thing that mattered most: people.
It was an age when hardly anyone knew what a hamburger was, let alone how to make one. Ki-jo knew who the authority on Western food was. Cho Choong-hoon of Hanjin.
Every week Cho Choong-hoon invited American officers to his house and served them a full Western dinner. Each time he brought in chefs from first-class hotels, so he knew a great many cooks. Ki-jo decided to use that network.
He telephoned Cho Choong-hoon, and the man picked up as if glad to hear him.
"Little brother! What's the matter? Calling to wish me a happy New Year? Let me say it first. Many blessings in the new year!"
"Thank you, big brother. And the same to you."
Ki-jo had to smile from the very first word at the sheer force of Cho Choong-hoon's charm. The man could put another person in a good mood on energy alone.
"Big brother, I want to make food that will satisfy American soldiers. Help me."
"What? You too—planning to entertain American officers the way I do?"
"No. I'll be entertaining the enlisted men."
"The enlisted men? Why on earth? Those boys are draftees. All they think about is finishing their hitch and going home. Do right by them all you like—there's nothing in it."
Swallowing a laugh, Ki-jo told him the truth.
"I'm going to open a hamburger shop in front of Eighth Army headquarters. Introduce me to a cook who really knows how to make hamburgers."
"Ah, that was it? Then I'll introduce you to proper cooks."
"Thank you, big brother."
"Thank me for what? Let's make a lot of money in '59, too!"
"We should."
Ki-jo hung up, and a warmth spread through him. There were so many good people around him. It struck him as no small thing that Cho Choong-hoon had offered his help from the very first stone Ki-jo was laying toward the Vietnam boom. Five years from now, in Vietnam, Cho Choong-hoon would be a great help again.