Burger King

In 1952, Matthew Burns and his son-in-law Keith Cramer visited the McDonald’sMcDonald’sMcDonald’s is a publicly traded restaurant company headquartered in Chicago, known for hamburgers, fries, drive-thrus and its franchise network. Its origins lie in the restaurant opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald in 1940; Ray Kroc expanded franchising from 1955. It operates across more than 100 countries, with the great majority of restaurants run by independent operators.Open the full entry in San Bernardino, California, and on the same trip met inventor George Read, whose Insta-Broiler could cook a dozen patties at once and turn out about 400 burgers an hour. The first Insta-Burger King opened in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1953, but the machine broke down often.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

In 1954 James McLamore and David Edgerton opened the first Burger King restaurant in Miami, Florida. Edgerton was an Insta-Burger franchisee, and after McLamore joined him, the two converted the Insta-Broiler into a flame broiler, giving rise to the brand’s distinctive flame-grilled cooking.⁠[2][1][1]

In 1957 Burger King introduced the Whopper, priced at 37 cents at a time when a McDonald’s burger cost 15 cents. That same year, as the Jacksonville Insta-Burger King ran into trouble, Edgerton and McLamore bought the national rights and rebranded the business as Burger King of Miami.⁠[2][1][1]

Burger King opened its first international restaurant in the Bahamas in 1966, entered Canada in 1969 and Australia in 1971, and opened its first European restaurant in Madrid, Spain, in 1975. It introduced the “bun halves” logo in 1969, launched its first Have It Your Way campaign in 1974 and introduced drive-thru service in 1975; from 1985 it offered breakfast nationwide.⁠[2][2][2]

In 1967 McLamore and Edgerton sold the company to Minneapolis-based Pillsbury. When Grand Metropolitan acquired Pillsbury in 1989, Burger King became its subsidiary; Grand Met later merged with Guinness to form the British spirits company Diageo. The company later said that as a non-core subsidiary of large conglomerates it had eight CEOs between 1989 and 2002, with frequently changing strategies.⁠[2][2][3][2]

On December 13, 2002, Diageo sold Burger King to private equity funds controlled by Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs funds, making it an independent company for the first time since 1967. The company said it then faced declining average restaurant sales, a shrinking number of U.S. franchise restaurants, many franchisees in the United States and Canada in financial distress, strained franchisee relationships and poor service.⁠[2][2][2][2][2]

In August 2004 Greg Brenneman, who had led turnarounds at companies including Continental Airlines, became chief executive and introduced the Go Forward Plan. The company went on to generate pop-culture buzz with online campaigns such as the Subservient Chicken and Super Bowl advertising, and its ads won awards including a Gold Lion at Cannes.⁠[2][2][2][2][2]

Burger King Holdings completed its initial public offering in May 2006, and its shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BKC on May 18. Before the listing, as of the end of 2005, it had 11,141 restaurants in 67 countries and U.S. territories.⁠[3][3][2]

As of June 30, 2010, Burger King had 12,174 restaurants in 76 countries and U.S. territories, and its former private equity owners still held about 31% of the shares. On September 2, 2010, Burger King Holdings and 3G Capital3G Capital3G Capital is a global investment firm and private partnership headquartered in New York, which evolved in 2004 from the investment office of Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Herrmann Telles. It acquires consumer brands to hold over the long term with its partners directly involved in running them, having taken control of Burger King, partnered with Berkshire Hathaway to buy Heinz and bring about the Kraft Heinz merger, formed Restaurant Brands International, and acquired Skechers in 2025.Open the full entry announced that affiliates of 3G Capital would acquire the company for $24.00 per share, or $4.0 billion including assumed debt, a 46% premium to the share price before market rumors. Chairman and CEO John W. Chidsey said 3G Capital recognized the value the company had created in revitalizing the brand and improving operations over the past seven years.⁠[3][3][4][4][4]

On October 19, 2010, 3G Capital completed its acquisition of all of Burger King Holdings’ equity through 3G Special Situations Fund II, and the company’s stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after the close that day.⁠[5][5]

From December 2010 the company carried out a global restructuring with workforce reductions throughout the organization, followed in 2011 by a voluntary resignation program at its Miami headquarters, with related severance costs of $46.5 million in 2011; it also adopted “Zero Based Budgeting” and actively refranchised company restaurants. At the end of 2011 it had 12,512 restaurants in 81 countries and U.S. territories, 1,295 of them company-operated.⁠[5][5][5][5][5]

On June 20, 2012, Burger King completed a merger with London-listed Justice Holdings, after which the 3G side held about 71%; the new company was renamed Burger King Worldwide and listed again on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BKW.⁠[6][6]

On August 26, 2014, Burger King confirmed a roughly $11 billion merger with Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain Tim Hortons, with the new parent company based in Canada and the two brands run separately from Miami and near Toronto; Berkshire HathawayBerkshire HathawayBerkshire Hathaway Inc. is a multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States (NYSE: BRK.A/BRK.B), with businesses spanning insurance, railroads, energy, manufacturing, and retail. Warren Buffett took control of the company in 1965 and ran it until 2025, and Greg Abel succeeded him as CEO at the start of 2026. The company long held stakes in several U.S. banks, including M&T (1991–2020), Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, which it successively reduced or exited between 2020 and 2024.Open the full entry provided $3 billion of financing. The deal was seen as a tax “inversion,” a type of transaction criticized by the Obama administration and Democrats, and Senator Sherrod Brown called for a boycott of Burger King.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][7]

CEO Daniel Schwartz said the company’s effective tax rate was about 27%, similar to Tim Hortons’, that it did not expect “meaningful tax savings,” and that the deal was about growth rather than taxes; Geoffrey Loomer of Dalhousie University in Canada, however, argued that because Canada does not tax active foreign business income, the deal would cut the company’s tax bill. On September 18, Buffett acknowledged the deal was an inversion but said Burger King’s highest federal tax payment in the previous three years was $30 million, and no one would pay $11.8 billion to save that.⁠[7][7][8][8][9][9]

The transaction closed on December 12, 2014, when Burger King Worldwide stock ceased trading, and the new parent company, Restaurant Brands International (RBI), began trading on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges under the symbol QSR on December 15. At the time the Burger King system had about 14,000 locations, almost all run by independent franchisees. RBI was formed in Canada on August 25, 2014, and acquired Popeyes in March 2017.⁠[10][10][10][10][11][11]

In October and November 2018, former Burger King employees sued Burger King and affiliates including RBI in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging that a clause in the standard franchise agreement barring the solicitation and hiring of employees from other restaurants violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act; the four suits were consolidated into a class action. The court dismissed the case in March 2020, but in August 2022 the dismissal was reversed on appeal and remanded; in 2025 the court again denied the defendants’ request to dismiss, the plaintiffs amended their complaint and the defendants filed an answer, and in December of that year the court ordered the parties to attempt mediation. The company said it would vigorously defend the claims.⁠[12][12][12][12][12][12][12]

Consumers filed a class action alleging that since September 2017 Burger King had depicted the Whopper on menu boards and in other ads as about 35% larger than the actual burger with more than double the meat. In August 2023, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman in Miami ruled that the company must defend the claim that its in-store menu photos amounted to a breach of contract; on May 5, 2025, he again denied Burger King’s motion to dismiss, finding that “some” reasonable consumers could plausibly be deceived, with the plaintiffs being 19 consumers from 13 states.⁠[13][13][13][14][15][15]

Burger King acknowledged that its photographers had “styled sandwiches more beautifully” but argued that reasonable consumers understand menu photos are meant to make food look appetizing, and said the plaintiffs’ claims were false and that the flame-grilled beef patties in its ads are the same ones served in its restaurants.⁠[15][15]

On May 16, 2024, RBI completed its acquisition of Carrols Restaurant Group, the largest Burger King franchisee in the United States with 1,023 Burger King restaurants in 23 states, for $9.55 per share in cash, an enterprise value of about $1.0 billion. As part of the Reclaim the Flame plan, the company would invest a further $500 million to remodel more than 600 Carrols restaurants and refranchise most of them to new or existing smaller franchisees over seven years.⁠[16][16][16][16]

In October 2024, purported former Carrols shareholders sued RBI and two Carrols directors in the Delaware Court of Chancery, alleging that RBI coerced Carrols into the deal and that the two directors failed to disclose their conflicting interests and were not independent of RBI; in July 2025 the court denied RBI’s motion to dismiss, and trial was set for early 2027. RBI said it would vigorously defend the claims.⁠[12][12][12][12][12]

On February 14, 2025, RBI acquired substantially all the remaining equity of the Burger King China business from its former joint venture partners; in November of that year it agreed on a new joint venture with a fund managed by CPE, which closed on January 30, 2026, with CPE holding about 83% and RBI retaining about 17% and a board seat. At the end of 2025 Burger King China had 1,247 restaurants.⁠[12][12][12][12][12]

Burger King is carrying out its multi-year Reclaim the Flame plan to accelerate sales and franchisee profitability, investing up to $700 million through the end of 2028 in advertising, digital, remodels and kitchen equipment, among other areas. In 2025 RBI’s Burger King U.S. and Canada segment had system-wide sales of $11.578 billion and comparable sales growth of 1.5%, ending the year with 7,025 restaurants, fewer than a year earlier; across its brands RBI had more than 33,000 restaurants, over 95% of them franchised.⁠[12][12][12][12][12][12]

Burger King centers on flame-grilled hamburgers, chicken and other specialty sandwiches and calls itself the “Home of the Whopper.” The brand belongs to Restaurant Brands International, headquartered in Miami, and its U.S. and Canada business is led by President Tom Curtis.⁠[12][12][12][12]

Burger King: Official website: https://www.bk.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

X: Public account: https://x.com/BurgerKing (opens in a new window)⁠[17]