McDonald’s franchise operator’s early career was born of necessity

Bob Gilstrap, McDonald’s franchise operator, started working for McDonald’s in 1975 - 50 years ago. Today, he and his family operate eight McDonald’s franchises. Contributed photo.

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

Christmas is the one day of the year that Bob Gilstrap, McDonald’s franchise operator brews his coffee at home.

Every other day, he starts his morning - like a myriad of others do - with a cup of coffee from McDonald’s.

He started this personal custom 20 years ago, after McDonald’s improved their coffee, and started brewing it in such a way as to “extract more of the flavor.

“It is tasty and good,” he said. 

His decision to have his Christmas morning coffee at home is really not under his control. McDonald’s is closed for the holiday.

Experience, motivation

Bob Gilstrap started his work career with McDonald’s 50 years ago, out of necessity.

Simply put, he needed money to buy gasoline.

During his youth, “My aunt was very kind,” he said, “and every birthday and Christmas I got a Savings Bond.”

He cashed in those bonds when he was 16, and bought a car.

“Two weeks later, I didn’t have any money, and I needed gas. A kid down the street” suggested he apply for a job at McDonald’s.

Gilstrap, who grew up in St. Louis, got his hair cut short, and headed out for an interview. He got a job doing chores for the neighborhood restaurant franchise.

He continued to work at McDonald’s all through high school and during junior college.

“I was opening manager during high school for 3 to 4 years; I actually graduated from high school and worked as manager while going to community college.”

He was working at a McDonald’s in St. Louis when they first introduced breakfast, Gilstrap said. Before that, “there was no such thing as eating out at breakfast, unless it was a donut shop or diner.”

After college, Gilstrap launched out on another career path. He took a break from McDonald’s, and went to work instead for the telephone industry. But by 1983, he could see a change on the horizon. He was an installation repair foreman, and they wouldn’t let him transfer to the up-and-coming cellular side of the business. He rightfully predicted that the land line side of this industry would shrink, and that he likely wouldn’t make it to retirement with the company.

So he went to the library and started researching other career options, including franchises.

What he learned was that McDonald’s, where he originally worked, is at the top of the franchise industry.

“You can pick any other franchise. McDonald’s,” he learned, “is truly the largest, biggest and best example of that industry. It remains that.”

He decided to go back to the company where he got his first work experience. It was a good decision, and he knew it. “I wasn’t going to invent ‘the next thing’. I applied to be a registered applicant; I said I’d like to apply for a franchise.

“I worked 45 hours a week at Southwestern Bell and worked for free 40 hours (a week) at McDonald’s, to prove I knew the business.”

When the time was right, he was ready.

“I had a couple of different opportunities out of St. Louis that weren’t very good,” he said. One was a restaurant across from Soulard Market but, he said, “all the industrial base had gone. It didn’t work out too well. We did well enough that they were convinced they wanted to stay in business with me. I signed a 20-year contract.

“Then an opening came up in Hannibal. We moved here in 1996; I drove up on New Year’s Eve of 1995. The restaurant was underperforming; now it is over performing.”

A big part of the success of a McDonald’s franchise comes from the reputation earned by the franchise operator.

"The town knows your reputation, whether you help support sports or the YMCA,” he said.

“We’ve lived in Hannibal for 30 years; all the kids went to Hannibal High and the University of Missouri. Two daughters live in town. That’s unusual.”

One of his daughters is Ashley Orscheln, married to Adam Orscheln, and they have three children between them. “My daughter is managing (the family restaurants)” he said. Gilstrap has taken a step back, allowing her to lead. 

“She has had 10-plus years learning inside the business” he said, “and it’s time for her to do it.

“I don’t get to do the fun work anymore,” he said. The employees “can’t have two bosses; she has to be the one running the supervisors.

“People think of McDonald’s as a corporation. But every single McDonald’s is a family business. There are 14,000 McDonald’s in the U.S.; the average operator has 10 stores; there are 1,400 operators in the U.S.

“One in eight of all working Americans once worked at McDonald’s,” Gilstrap said. “It’s not  (necessarily) a permanent job, but I’ve had people work for me for the last 30 years. It can be a good start, like it was for me, and for a lot of people in my towns.

“That first job, it is to learn to show up, to do things you would never choose to do, with people you wouldn’t ever choose to meet, and to enjoy both of them. Some people are older than you, different than you; they live in a different part of town, but you are all doing the same thing. ‘You know what, we have this in common.’ The overlap between what you are about and they are about. You learn to forgo what you would like to do this morning in order to get up and go to work.

“We didn’t all start out with that skill. When they start paying you to do what you do,” you think to yourself, “I guess I’ll do it. Then they team you with people you’d never really choose to be your friends, but you find you are friends.

“In school, you don’t make friends with everyone,” he said, “but when you’re working (at McDonald’s) eight hours a day, four or five days a week, and you are doing the same thing and almost all are teenagers, and you work with them for two years, you have a lot of shared experiences.

“I learned everything I need to know now by working at McDonald’s,” he said.

“Jay Leno worked at McDonald’s,” Gilstrap said.

Changes

He’s seen a lot of changes since he first went to work for McDonald’s in 1975.

“The largest change, in 1975 the work force in McDonald’s was pretty much majority male; we had a few females. Now the workforce is majority female. That’s a big change. I cannot put my finger on it. I can’t tell you why it changed.

“We have males that do very well,” he said, but of the family’s eight restaurants, there is one male general manager and seven females.

“We certainly don’t just hire females,” he said. “The nature of the work, the females tend to like it more.

“One young man has worked here since he was 16; he’s 29 now. He’s still working at McDonald’s, and is good at it.

“All of our supervisors and general managers, all started as crew people. You don’t come in from the outside and do McDonald’s. A few people start somewhere else, but If they have a different industry experience, they don’t tend to adapt to this.”

Today, his family owns eight McDonald’s franchises, including restaurants in Bowling Green, Kirksville; Macon, Pittsfield, Ill.; Quincy, Ill., and Hannibal.

“I think back to one of my managers when I was a kid, he’s almost 80 now. I played golf with him in the summer; he ended up owning a Pasta House franchise. Fifty years. That’s a long time to know people.”

(And in case you’re wondering, Gilstrap said he no longer has any 1975 photos of himself with long hair. When asked, he mentioned something about burning them … a long time ago.

Sports reference

Gilstrap likens the management of McDonald’s to the role of a football coach. 

“You get your upper classmen executing like they should, and they do most of the training for the younger ones. But then you lose your senior class; they get married and have a kid or go into the military. And you start with a new freshman class. Once you have the culture rebuilt, you can plug a student athlete in.

“It’s hard work,” he said, and it never gets easier.

“You get better and your people get better, but it is still work. You can’t work from home. You have to interact with the customer, manage inventory, train people, manage them.

“The more you’ve done it the easier it is to execute; people get better at it, but it is still work.

 “And the culture’s not for everyone.”

The McDonald’s fast food restaurant first opened on McMaster’s Avenue in 1979. Bob Gilstrap took over operation in 1996. Photo by Meryle Martin Dexheimer for the Courier-Post.