One For The Road: The First McDonald's In The Soviet Union

By Samantha Abernethy in Food on Jan 31, 2012 11:40PM

On this date in 1990, the first McDonald's restaurant opened up in the Soviet Union and served 30,000 people. Below, the ABC News archival footage from 1990 captures the excitement.

McDonald's had to lay 14 years of groundwork to open this restaurant in 1990, building the industry from the ground potato up. 27,000 people applied to work at the first Moscow McDonald's, and 605 were hired. A New York Times article in 2010 wrote that the restaurants in Russia employ 25,000 people. The supply chain businesses employ 100,000

Bonus: At the very end of the video, there's a kid in a Cubs hat and jacket. How did that get there?