Screw the chicken sandwich...lets talk fish!
In what has now become a well-worn piece of fast food legend, the birth of the drive-thru fish sandwich almost never happened. And just like the pop-top can, the hot dog, and the rubber boot, we have a small town in Ohio to thank for this rather fishy invention.
The year was 1959, and Cincinnati-area McDonald's franchisee Lou Groen had a major problem: his new business simply wasn't driving the revenue he expected. Groen suspected that the area's 87 percent Catholic population was a factor — they weren't visiting his humble hamburger stand on Fridays and during Lent, when Catholics traditionally forgo meat.
Groen had an idea for creating an alternative fish-based sandwich that would appeal to locals, and in the early days of the McDonald's corporation, franchisees could simply pick up the phone and speak to Ray Kroc directly.
According to the Smithsonian, Kroc initially hated the idea of "[stinking up his stores] with the smell of fish." In 1962, Kroc's counter offer was the ill-fated "Hula Burger," which featured a wildly undesirable slice of grilled pineapple with cheese on a bun. After testing both concepts, the newly-minted "Filet-O-Fish" was the clear winner, and the product became a bonafide hit for McDonald's, eventually selling 300 million of the sandwiches each year.
In the nearly 60 years since the invention of the Filet-O-Fish, fast food fried fish sandwiches have become big business. But which chain does it the best?
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