What $2 Could Buy You At McDonald's In The 1950s

If you had just $2 in the McDonald's of 1955, you were a king. That was the year that Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, after going into business with the McDonald brothers, who had started the original McDonald's hamburger stand in 1948 in California. It was the seed that grew into perhaps the most iconic fast food restaurant in the world, which now has over 44,000 locations. And that growth was built on the back not just of speed, but of affordability, because in 1955, $2 would get you every single item on the McDonald's menu at once.

In stark contrast to the much larger McDonald's menu of today, there were only nine items back then — no combo meals or anything, just à la carte options. The only food was a hamburger, cheeseburger, and fries, while for drinks you could get a Coke, root beer, "orangeade," coffee, milkshake, or just plain milk. The most expensive item on the menu was the milkshake, at 20 cents, while all the other drinks cost 10 cents, as did the fries. A hamburger would set you back a cool 15 cents, while a cheeseburger cost 19 cents. Altogether that adds up to $1.14 for everything on the menu, so $2 would actually leave you with a fair amount of change. But there is one catch with these nostalgic prices: The portion sizes were smaller than what we're used to today.

The original McDonald's hamburger and cheeseburger are basically the same size as the basic hamburger and cheeseburger on the menu today, but there was nothing larger available back then. No Big Mac, no Quarter Pounder — 3.7 ounces of beef and bun combined was all you got for your 15 cents. The only fry size was 2.4 ounces, which is slightly smaller than the smallest size you can buy today. And a soda was 7 ounces, while a small fountain drink at McDonald's today is more than twice the size at 16 ounces.

If you adjust for inflation, that 15-cent hamburger would be $1.80 as of this writing, the cheeseburger would be $2.28, and the fries and drink would be $1.20 each. We can compare that using prices in Texas, which has some of the most average fast food prices in the country. The basic McDonald's hamburger, almost identical in size to the 1955 version, is only $1.49 today, while the cheeseburger is $1.59. In fact, a double hamburger today is actually only slightly more expensive than the original hamburger. A small drink today is $1.49, but remember that it's more than twice the size. The outlier is McDonald's famously good fast food fries, which cost $2.29 today for a small — $1.09 more than the inflation-adjusted price from 1955. So while those 1950s McDonald's prices are certainly eye-popping, most people today are actually getting a better deal.