Burger King

The predecessor to Burger King was founded on July 23, 1953 in Jacksonville, Florida by Keith Cramer and his stepfather Matthew Burns — who had visited the McDonald brothers' original restaurant in San Bernardino, California and wanted to replicate the concept. Their key differentiator was the Insta-Broiler, a mechanical flame-broiling device that cooked burger patties over a gas flame rather than frying them. The result was a distinctive smoky flavour that everything from $0.18 hamburgers to modern Whoppers has retained. Financial difficulties hit by 1954, and two Miami-based franchisees — James McLamore and David Edgerton — purchased the company and renamed it Burger King. They introduced the Whopper in 1957 for $0.37 and expanded to 250 locations before selling to Pillsbury in 1967.

Burger King became a case study in ownership instability. Pillsbury acquired it in 1967 for $18 million. Grand Metropolitan bought Pillsbury in 1989 for $5.7 billion (inheriting Burger King). Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness in 1997 to form Diageo (the spirits company) — which found itself owning a fast food chain. Diageo sold Burger King to a TPG Capital, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs consortium for $1.5 billion in 2002, who took it public. 3G Capital of Brazil — the same firm that built AB InBev and would later buy Heinz — acquired a majority stake for $3.26 billion in 2010. Each ownership change promised a revitalisation that McDonald's continued to render moot.

3G Capital engineered a merger between Burger King and Tim Hortons — the iconic Canadian coffee and doughnut chain — in 2014, creating Restaurant Brands International (RBI) in a deal valued at $11.4 billion. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway provided $3 billion in financing. The deal was structured as a tax inversion, moving the combined company's legal domicile to Canada. RBI subsequently added Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (2017, $1.8 billion) and Firehouse Subs (2021, $1 billion), creating a portfolio of four franchise-heavy quick-service brands.

Under 3G Capital's ownership, Burger King invested in a "Reclaim the Flame" strategy: a $400 million plan to renovate restaurants, upgrade technology, and strengthen franchisee economics. The Whopper — introduced in 1957 — remained the brand's most recognisable product globally, available in nearly 100 countries. Burger King's willingness to innovate around the Whopper (plant-based Impossible Whopper in 2019, regional variations globally) gave it brand flexibility that McDonald's Big Mac could not easily match.

Restaurant Brands International generated system-wide sales across its four brands exceeding $40 billion in 2024. Burger King alone operated 19,666 restaurants globally, with over 90% franchised. In 2024, RBI completed the $1 billion acquisition of Carrols Restaurant Group — Burger King's largest US franchisee — specifically to execute a remodelling programme across 600 locations and then sell them back to new franchisees. US systemwide Burger King sales reached approximately $11 billion. The chain that had been owned by a spirits company, a leveraged buyout firm, and Brazilian private equity had become the anchor of one of the world's largest fast food holding companies.