18 facts about your favorite fast-food chains that might surprise you

The first McDonald's logo was based on the original roof design of its restaurants, but it still emphasized the letter "M."

The original design featured red, yellow, and blue. Today, the McDonald's logo is much simpler and features a yellow-gold "M" on a red background. However, the golden arches still represent the McDonald's brand.

When McDonald's first opened, its signs also featured the chain's mascot, Speedee.

Speedee, a chef with a hamburger for a head, appeared on the signs alongside the brand's original logo of two interlocking golden arches.

Some signs also advertised the low price of McDonald's hamburgers — just 15 cents.

Ronald McDonald was almost a cowboy or spaceman, rather than a clown, but those ideas were quickly thrown out.

Ronald McDonald was introduced in 1963 during an advertisement for the restaurant in the Washington, DC, area.

In the ad, Ronald McDonald pulled hamburgers out of his belt and had a McDonald's cup for a nose. His hat was a tray with a Styrofoam hamburger, fries, and a milkshake on top of it. His signature costume later included a red-and-white striped shirt, yellow jumpsuit, and red hair. 

In 2014, McDonald's announced that the brand would be revamping Ronald's look. He would now wear a red-and-white striped rugby shirt, yellow cargo pants, and a vest or jacket instead of the signature jumpsuit.

Despite Ronald McDonald being featured less frequently in McDonald's advertising nowadays, the chain has yet to officially retire the character.

The first Big Mac sold for 45 cents.

The first Big Mac-esque sandwich was created by owner and operator Jim Delligatti of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1967, but it wouldn't be released nationwide until 1968.

It included two beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame-seed bun.

Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old secretary for the company's advertising department in 1967, came up with the famous burger's name.

According to the Associated Press, executives and other employees at the time laughed at her suggestion of "Big Mac." However, it stuck and went on to become "one of the best-known product names of all time."

It wasn't until 1985 that McDonald's Corp. finally recognized Rose had come up with the name.

McDonald's chicken nuggets come in four shapes: the bell, the ball, the boot, and the bow tie (also called the bone).

The shapes are all the same width and they are "pressed out with a rolling cookie cutter." The shapes of the chain's chicken nuggets are standardized in order to ensure even cooking times for food safety in all McDonald's restaurants.

In-N-Out is credited as the first chain to have a two-way speaker system for drive-thru orders.

In-N-Out founder Harry Snyder invented the two-way speaker system from his own garage in 1948. The innovation allowed customers the convenience of not having to leave their cars or speak to an employee face-to-face in order to place their orders.

In-N-Out's now-iconic animal-style burgers were prepared in response to customers' requests.

The recipe is still the same today as it was in the 1960s: a mustard-cooked beef patty, lettuce, tomato, pickles, extra spread, and grilled onions.

You might know Taco Bell for its large menu, but when the chain opened in 1962, it offered just five items.

The first Taco Bell restaurant opened in Downey, California. Each item cost just 19 cents, and the menu featured traditional Mexican favorites like frijoles, tostadas, burritos, and tacos, plus chili burgers. 

Two years later, the chain's first franchise opened in Torrance, California.

When the first value menu launched, Taco Bell priced a taco at just 39 cents.

However, according to a New York Times article from 1990, then-Taco Bell CEO John Martin said the chain's "transactions went through the roof, but profitability went through the floor."

The price of a taco was then raised to 49 cents. A summer 1994 commercial still touted that customers could order a taco for 49 cents, a Supreme taco for 79 cents, and Big Beef taco for 99 cents.

You can still order from Taco Bell's value menu, but it only has eight items. Four menu items cost $1, three cost $2, and a combo costs $5. 

Before Chick-fil-A began using a cow as its mascot, the chain was represented by — perhaps unsurprisingly — a chicken.

The chain's tagline used to read, "The best thing that ever happened to a chicken." Now, Chick-fil-A's slogan pays homage to its most famous menu item: its chicken sandwich.

According to The Chicken Wire, the "A" in Chick-fil-A comes from both a play on the word "filet" and a nod to the "grade-A top quality chicken" used in Chick-fil-A's chicken sandwiches.

However, the chain also still uses cows and the words "Eat Mor Chikin" to bring customers through its doors. 

Chick-fil-A's original chicken sandwich was unlike anything else on the market when founder S. Truett Cathy created the recipe in 1964.

The sandwich featured a fried chicken boneless breast between two buttered buns and topped with two pickles. According to a previous article by Business Insider, there was nothing like it on any other fast-food menu at the time.

Though the sandwich soon shot to popularity at the Dwarf House, Cathy's first restaurant before Chick-fil-A, the invention was odd compared to other fast-food offerings and food tastes of the time.

According to The Chicken Wire, the USDA reported that in 1961, the average American ate an average of 50 pounds of beef per person annually. However, Cathy's bet on chicken would soon pay off.

Though Chick-fil-A has expanded immensely since the launch of its chicken sandwich, the recipe has remained virtually the same.

Chicken nuggets weren't added to the Chick-fil-A menu until 1982.

The first Chick-fil-A nuggets came in a six-count box, inspired by customers asking restaurant employees to cut up pieces of its signature chicken sandwich so that they could eat it by hand or serve the bite-sized nuggets at parties.

"We are still serving the same delicious nuggets today that we started with," Shona Jonson, senior manager of culinary, product strategy and development at Chick-fil-A, once said, according to The Chicken Wire

There's a luau-themed Chick-fil-A in Fayetteville, Georgia, that features Hawaiian-inspired menu items.

The menu features unique items touted as "Hawaiian favorites with a Southern spin," like pineapple chicken tacos, a Luau Burger (a bacon cheeseburger with a pineapple disk on top), and "tropical nuggets," which are the chain's chicken nuggets doused in sweet tropical sauce.

According to Chick-fil-A's website, company founder S. Truett Cathy wanted to "bring Hawaii to Fayetteville, Georgia" after visiting the state. The restaurant opened in 2013, and it has recently attracted the attention of Chick-fil-A fans on TikTok. However, according to reporting by Insider's Rachel Askinasi, experts say the food is a far cry from traditional Hawaiian food. 

"It's about as Hawaiian as Elvis Presley holding a ukulele singing in 'Blue Hawaii'," Chef Sheldon Simeon, the owner of Tin Roof in Maui, told Insider.

When the first Burger King restaurant opened in 1953, it was called Insta-Burger King.

Founded in Jacksonville, Florida, by Keith Kramer and Matthew Burns, the company was taken over in 1954 by David Edgerton and James McLamore. They decided to expand the chain's locations.

Burger King was the first fast-food restaurant chain to offer dining rooms.

When Burger King added its plastic-furnished eating areas in the 1950s, its drive-thru windows were gradually phased out. However, in 1975, the drive-thru windows were reintroduced.

Burger King introduced its own version of an internet cafe in the late 1990s.

One Burger King restaurant, located on Broadway in New York City, allowed customers to surf the web on one of its 20 PC computers if they purchased a meal.

Basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal is a major Five Guys fan — at one point, he owned 155 Five Guys restaurants.

That was equivalent to 10% of the company's restaurants. The NBA star told CNBC in 2018 that he had sold his stake a few years earlier, saying the burger business had been "very good" to him.