Inventor of the Quarter Pounder Dead

By Mark Lorenz on January 1st, 2010

Mcdonalds-1 Today is a sad day for food enthusiasts everywhere. Wait, did I really just type out the phrase food enthusiast? I did. So now it’s a sad day for people who are fans of the English language and food enthusiasts everywhere. The inventor of the Quarter Pounder has passed away.

McDonald’s has served over a billion hamburgers. I’m willing to wager over a billion of them were also Quarter Pounders, invented by Al Bernadin. He died of a stroke yesterday, at the age on 81.

You want an awesome fact? Al Bernadin was the dean of Hamburger University, McDonald’s training school. Hamburger University. There’s a school called Hamburger University. I’m pretty sure I wanted to go to that school when I was eight. OH WAIT, I STILL DO.

In addition to inventing the Quarter Pounder, Al was responsible for the widespread use of frozen potatoes in French fries, a practice that cut down costs, and the rancid smell of rotting potatoes in the basement. And the quandary of carrying a sack of potatoes back and forth from the fryer. Hauling around a sack of potatoes sounds like an activity that would not be fun, and should take place during the French Revolution.

Anyway, thank you Al Bernadin. Your memory will live on forever with people who are hungry late at night, or anyone who’s seen a Tarantino film.