When Guatemala invented the Happy Meal

I never eat McDonald’s. Except in Guatemala.

There, it’s different. Lines around the block. Not because it just launched - this isn’t Moscow in the ’90s. Because one woman refused to accept the manual.

Her name was Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño.

Yolanda opened Guatemala’s first McDonald’s in 1974. She noticed kids couldn’t finish regular portions. So she created the “Ronald Menu” - smaller burger, small fries, ice cream, and a toy. She didn’t ask permission. She just did it.

McDonald’s corporate saw it working and rolled it out worldwide in 1979. They called it the Happy Meal.

She also invented birthday parties at McDonald’s. Got two “Ronald Awards” - one in 1980 for parties, another in 1982 for the Happy Meal. Then the “Golden Arches” award, the highest honor McDonald’s gives.

McDonald’s used Guatemala as a global test site. They piloted McCafés there. Credited Yolanda with creating the Latin American “Derretido.”

After her husband died, she kept going - expanded to El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua. She built three Ronald McDonald Houses for low-income families traveling to Guatemala City for medical treatment.

She ran it all until 2018. She passed away in 2021 at the age of 87.

Most things that scale lose this - the care, the local touch, the person who sees what could be better and refuses to accept less. Consistency can kill craft. Except when someone won’t let it.

Fer Franco told me I had to try McDonald’s in Guatemala. I didn’t believe him until I went.

We’re back in Guatemala next week - this time running immersive case studies for family offices focused on impact investing, with our friends at TBN.

I’m hoping we all get time for that Big Mac.