Photo: McDonald'sQuarter Pounder with Cheese
If the Big Mac is about sauce, this one is about meat, and in the US it finally got the meat right: the patty is fresh beef cooked when you order, so it lands with a real crust instead of a grey edge. Two slices of cheese, mustard and ketchup, sharp onions and pickles keep it simple. Plenty of people who grew up on Big Macs quietly switched to this and never went back.
The story
A franchisee in Fremont, California, Al Bernardin, created it in 1971 for customers who wanted a bigger, meatier burger than anything on the board. It went national within a couple of years. In countries on the metric system it runs under other names, most famously Royale with Cheese in France, which Pulp Fiction turned into one of the best-known lines about fast food ever written.
What’s inside
Make it at home
My copycat first, then everything I built on top of it.
The Quarter Pounder with Cheese on YouTube
Everyone who has cooked, copied or taste-tested it on camera.
Similar burgers at other chains
Built around the same things as the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.- Spangles · beef and cheese
SignatureThe Beast Steakburger - Pasibus · beef and cheese
SignatureKlasyk - Wendy's · beef and cheese
Jr. Cheeseburger - Carl's Jr. · beef and cheese
Big Cheeseburger
More from McDonald's
About McDonald's
Nobody sells more burgers. McDonald’s began as a single drive-in run by Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California, and became a burger machine in 1948, when the brothers threw out most of the menu and rebuilt the kitchen like a production line. Ray Kroc, a salesman who sold them milkshake mixers, started franchising it in 1955 and later bought the brothers out.
More than 40,000 restaurants in over 100 countries.
Not affiliated with McDonald's. Trademarks belong to their owners. The photo is credited under it and is used to illustrate this menu item; it comes down on request.