ROCK HILL, S.C. — Growing up with five sisters and two brothers, Bob Sweetman knew not to count on his dad for money.
To have the walking around change so necessary for teens, Sweetman would have to have a steady job.
So every afternoon during the week, Sweetman filled the baskets on his bike with the old Washington Star, delivering newspapers in his suburban Maryland neighborhood.
Later, he got a job as a cook in a nursing home and one summer he tried construction. He lasted only a few weeks pouring concrete. That job taught him the difference between hard work and HARD WORK.
At 17, he got a job flipping burgers at the local McDonald’s restaurant. At the time the minimum wage was $1, Sweetman remembers. His starting pay was $1.25.
“I was flying high,” Sweetman said.
That job began a relationship that lasted almost five decades. Sweetman – who went from the grill to owning seven McDonald’s restaurants in York County that employed 450 people – is retiring. He sold his stores to David Powell, who operates five McDonald’s locations in Charlotte.
Sweetman is slowly closing his office on Oakland Avenue and hopes to be fully retired soon, with even more time to enjoy his grandchildren, baseball, golf and wherever retirement leads him.
Like any great relationship, Sweetman easily recalls his McDonald’s memories.
At the top of the list is a youthful evening at the local McDonald’s in Silver Springs, Md.
He and his brother Tom had come to McDonald’s after a party, arriving in the family’s station wagon. In the next parking spot was a brand new, 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang. Its driver, also named Tom, also had been at the party. Sitting pretty in the Mustang was his date, Mary Melzer.
Bob and Mary stayed in their respective cars while the others went to buy burgers.
“I wanted to make a good impression on the girl,” Sweetman remembers.
He also recalls what he said next, admitting it probably wasn’t the best pick-up line.
“Do you want to go home in a good car?” he asked Mary.
Mary doesn’t remember her answer.
But she does remember seeing Bob at the next teen dance and discovering he was a good dancer. They met at 15, married at 21, and have been together ever since.
Sweetman also remembers his first day on the job at the local McDonald’s.
His manager was training him on how to make hamburgers, telling him to put the mustard and ketchup in the middle of the burger.
After Sweetman’s first attempt, manager Leon Kalina asked him to try again.
After Sweetman’s second attempt, Kalina asked Sweetman to try again, and again, and then finally said, in exasperation, “Don’t you know where the center is?”
It wasn’t the only math lesson Sweetman learned on the job. To simplify operations on the cash register, Sweetman would total the order in his head as he grabbed the food.
It wasn’t as challenging as it sounds.
Hamburgers were 10 cents then. A hamburger, fries and a soda were 47 cents with tax. That’s about all that was on the menu. The Big Mac was not introduced until 1968.
Even with the simpler menu, Sweetman’s bosses wanted to be the best of McDonald’s. Sweetman remembers their efforts to be the first store in their region to sell $600 in food in one day.
That was when McDonald’s had its “candy stripe” stores of red and white tiles and built-in golden arches.
There were only walk-up windows – no inside seating or drive-up windows.
The first time they tried for the goal, the store had $595 in sales. The next weekend they tried again, selling $697, prompting an assistant manager to ask, “couldn’t you have sold $3 more?”
The lesson of financial success hit home when one of his managers, Dick People, showed him his bonus check.
“It was more than his salary,” Sweetman said, and it prompted him to decide, “this is what I want to do.”
WSOC
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