Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc Read Free Book Online

I recalled that spare bill of fare in my first motto for McDonald’s—KISS—which meant, “Keep it simple, stupid.”
    Another thing that captivated me was the deft service of the Swiss waiters. They would bring out a roast duckling on a big wooden platter and filet it right at the customer’s table, slicing it up with the flair of a magician producing rabbits from a hat. I admired their professionalism.
    But I didn’t have a lot of time to observe what was going on that first night. I played the piano continuously. When it came time to take a break, the rest of the players left the bandstand, but Robinson placed a silk top hat on the piano and told me I had to keep playing requests for people who wanted to sing. The customers tossed tips into the hat, and I felt good about that until I discovered that I was expected to share the tips with all the other players. That was grossly unfair, and I was steaming mad. But it was the custom, apparently, and there wasn’t much I could do about it if I wanted to keep the job. I hammered away, my fingers getting painful from such unaccustomed exercise, and I vowed that I would figure out a way to keep this piano player from being the goat for the whole orchestra.
    The solution didn’t come to me that first night, or even the first week. I was too busy worrying about whether I would last the entire evening. When I’d get home my fingers would be puffed and almost bleeding, and I had to soak them in a bucket of warm water. I tried the direct approach to Willard Robinson once more on a night when he seemed relatively mellow and more sober than usual.
    â€œMr. Robinson, I think I am getting a dirty deal,” I said. “When you played piano through all the breaks, it was different. You were the star folks had come to see, and they paid handsome tips. You could afford to share them, because you were getting your pay as leader, too. I’m just one of the boys, yet I have to play much more than the others and get nothing extra for it at all!”
    He looked at me vacantly and then squinted until he got me in focus. “That’s too bad, Joe,” he responded. “Maybe you’ll get smart and learn to play the flute or somethin’.”
    I got smart, all right, but no thanks to Robinson. I was doing my solo routine for requests one night, and an old geezer who’d won a bundle at the racetrack that day came in with a doll who could have been his granddaughter but obviously was not. They danced over to the piano in a spastic flutter, cheek-to-cheek, and the old boy waved a dollar bill at me and asked if I could play “I Love You Truly.” I just stared at him and shook my head negatively. He was startled and the young girl slapped his hand with the dollar, knocking it into the top hat, and she shouted, “How dare you insult him with a dollar, you cheapskate!” Then she grabbed a twenty-dollar bill out of the bundle that protruded from his breast pocket and dropped it in my lap. “Hey, wait a minute,” I called. “Did you say ‘I Love You Truly’?” and I played the first few bars haltingly, as though striving to recall them. He nodded vigorously, and I went ahead with the tune and played the hell out of it. If my associates in the orchestra noticed the extra tip, they didn’t say anything about it. Special requests for a little bit extra to the piano player became a common thing after that.
    I got even smarter. I talked the violinist into playing the breaks with me and strolling through the audience, serenading each table individually. That doubled our tips immediately and was a big addition to our pay every week.
    One night the revenue agents outmaneuvered the Palm Island security men and we all wound up in jail. I was mortified. My parents would disown me if they found out I had been put in jail with a bunch of common violators of the prohibition law. We were only there three hours,