On April 15, 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's restaurant at 400 North Lee Street in Des Plaines, Illinois, after visiting the San Bernardino original and recognizing the franchise potential of the McDonald brothers' Speedee Service System. Kroc's Des Plaines restaurant introduced the golden arches logo and established the franchising model that would transform McDonald's from a single California location into the world's largest restaurant chain. This event marked the beginning of fast food's transition from a regional phenomenon to a national and eventually global industry, with Kroc's aggressive franchising strategy creating the template for corporate fast food expansion that would reshape diets worldwide.

Kroc's franchising model became a symbol in American poetry for the spread of corporate uniformity, appearing in the work of poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti who wrote about chain stores and standardized experiences as threats to individuality. The golden arches themselves entered the poetic lexicon as an icon of American commercial imperialism, a motif developed by poets from William S. Burroughs to contemporary spoken-word artists who use McDonald's as a shorthand for the homogenizing force of American capitalism on local cultures and culinary traditions worldwide.